En sukkah is a log cabin, which is built outdoors once a year to celebrate the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, sukkot. From here you can see the starry sky through a canopy of branches and leaves. Children decorate the arbor with string lights, cutouts and garlands. Now is the time for Jewish families to gather and eat together in the sukkah.

This year, Culture Night falls in the middle of Sukkot. The holiday points back to Jewish history; the time when the Israelites wandered for 40 years through the desert and away from slavery in Egypt. Here they had no permanent residence, so some rabbis believe that the Israelites built tabernacles in the desert. Others interpret the tradition more symbolically, where the tabernacle is an expression of living protected in God's cloud of love. 

It is far from all Danish Jews who celebrate Sukkot today. But here in our arbor we have collected stories and pictures from around Denmark, which together show the tradition in different environments.

Welcome to a holiday in a cabin!

There are long festive services in the synagogue and cookies in the sukkah.Many hundreds find their way to Krystalgade during Sukkot. Several people live in an apartment and may not be allowed to build a sukkah in the yard for the caretaker. For all of them there is a common sukkah in the synagogue.

Sukkah on wheels makes a stop in Jutland. If you live outside Copenhagen, there can be a long way between Jewish families to celebrate the holiday with. That is why the Jewish Orthodox organization, Chabad Denmark, drives around to Danish cities with a log cabin on the bed of a trailer.

The small, old sukkah is set up in the schoolyard year after year. It soon can't take it anymore. But they always give it another year. The Caroline school is the only Jewish school in Denmark. Each student at the school has their own way of being Jewish, and not all families mark the Jewish holidays at home. Nevertheless, the students gather with great enthusiasm for the festive sukkot, where decorations for the sukkah at the school are drawn and cut.

It is not the food, but the togetherness that matters. Chili con carne, chicken soup or lasagna are all simple and warming dishes that can be served on the table in the sukkah. Most of the decorations may survive from year to year, but sometimes a fresh cut-and-paste day is needed. Motifs of honey pots, bees, pomegranates and shofa horns recur in many guises.

Some think it's like sitting in a Christmas tree. Leaf huts can look many ways. The walls can be made of different materials, while the roof must be organic. In Denmark, there are several people who build the roof from spruce branches instead of palm leaves.

It might be a bit impractical in Denmark. An autumn evening can be both rainy and windy, so the cold climate is a natural challenge. While the vast majority of religious holidays take place indoors at home in living rooms, Sukkot is a fairly visible holiday for the outside world - that you suddenly celebrate something that the majority in Denmark does not celebrate. A gazebo in the backyard cannot be hidden, and it can be sensitive for some to show off.

Although it is autumn, the weather is still warm and balmy in Israel. Sukkot may well be a somewhat forgotten celebration here in Denmark. But in Israel it is different. Here, the majority mark the Jewish holidays, and there are therefore more people to celebrate them with. Some observe all religious commandments to the letter, while others take things a little easier. Sukkot is also in many ways a harvest festival, and Israel abounds at this time of year with juicy figs and dates.

Huge shopping and the children have the day off from school. In the run up to Sukkot, a lot happens. Sukkot falls right after both the Jewish New Year and the Day of Atonement. As early as August, many in Israel begin to shop heavily and prepare for the festivities. The streets are buzzing with life, and a sea of ​​creative gazebos peeks out and adorns the cityscape. Expensive etrog fruits are sold on street corners, and the beautiful lulav bouquets can be seen everywhere.

Sukkot is part of your, mine and all of our cultural heritage. In a backyard in Copenhagen there is a sukkah, which today is protected. It is the oldest preserved log cabin in Copenhagen. It was built back in the early 1900s and has been in use right up until the 1980s by the same family for Sukkot. The rest of the year, the sukkah has functioned as a shed for storage in the backyard. The sukkah is protected because it tells about the cultural history of the Jewish minority in Copenhagen and in Denmark.

A listed building is not protected for the test of time. It is in itself a peculiar sight that the tabernacle is still standing, because they are basically temporary huts which only stand up during the week of Sukkot. It is our task as a museum to help secure and preserve the sukkah for posterity. For us and for the next ones.