Question: I am looking for information (written and visual) for a short presentation on Sukkot around the world. My audience is a small group of Seniors at a local JCC.

Answer: The classic resource is Philip Goodman’s The Sukkot and Simhat Torah Anthology (Phila, JPS, 1973). The book includes a little bit of everything, and is most likely available in your local public or synagogue library.

I also suggest The Jewish Catalog by Richard Siegel (Phila., JPS, 1973). Check the sections on The Four Species (p. 73) and Sukkot (p. 126).

Written resources on the Internet:

Jewish Heritage Online Magazine’s Tishrei entry provides short explanations of the holiday’s laws and customs, stories with relevant themes, and some visuals.

My Jewish Learning provides basic information about Sukkot.

Sukkot Humor


Visual resources on the Internet:

JTS’s Holiday Image Databank:
The vibrant images at this site include an 18th century German sukkah decoration, a 19th century Italkan sukkah decoration, and a gentleman holding a lulav and esrog from a 1709 Corfu mahzor.

Photos of unusual sukkot: click here and here.

Photos of a wide variety of sukkot, including one for american soldiers in Iraq, and one based on a Navajo shade structure in a Utah desert.

Photos demonstrating how to shake the lulav and esrog:

Audio resources on the Internet:

From the Israeli National Sound Archives, Sukkot music from Jewish communities in India, Afganistan, and the Hasidim; Samaritan Torah reading on for Sukkot

From the Judaica Sound Archives at Florida Atlantic University:

This is a recording of folk songs, and Hasidic and Yemenite music for Sukkot. This recording includes a Sholom Aleichem story about Sukkot, in Yiddish.

Video Resources on the Internet:

A variety of Sukkot videos, some serious, some light.