Anne Gordon

In 2005, I came back to Jerusalem, having lived there in the ’90s, and found that many of my landmarks in neighborhoods beyond the one that had been my own were gone. They had been built up and around and over. A friend drove me through all the areas with brand-spanking-new buildings, so I could get my bearings, but I couldn’t.

It’s the Ten Days of Repentance — the time between the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when Jews often reflect over the past year. They consider where they did well, what they could do better, and where they were downright wrong. They ask forgiveness, and — if they believe — they approach God with trepidation for all that the previous year may bode for the coming year. Yom Kippur, it is said, is a day of mercy that wipes the slate clean for just about everyone.