The Best Type Of Food To Break Your Yom Kippur Fast

Observant Jews are about to wrap up the holiest period of the year, with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, having ended last week, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, starting today at sundown and ending tomorrow at sundown (via Illini Chabad). This timeframe on the Jewish calendar is known as the Days of Awe, according to CNN, and is a time for focused prayer and atonement for the failings and flaws of the previous year — in order to start the new year with a clean slate.

As in many religions across the world, this period of reflection is marked by abstinence from food and drink, a.k.a fasting, per My Jewish Learning. From sundown tonight until sundown tomorrow, observant Jews will fast for 25 hours, refraining from eating and drinking in any form (with exceptions made for young children, the elderly, and the ill, according to Rabbi Bitton). If you're fasting tomorrow and you haven't made a plan for how to break it on Thursday morning, then you might want to check out these ideas.

If you're an observant Ashkenazi Jew — i.e., with your lineage tracing to Eastern and Central Europe (via My Jewish Learning) — then let's be honest here. You're probably going to break your Yom Kippur fast with a big, fat bagel stuffed with cream cheese and some type of smoked fish. A classic way to break the fast for American Jews, most of whom, like the rest of the world's population, are Ashkenazi (via Britannica).

According to The Jerusalem Post, a bagel loaded with all the fixings is undoubtedly a delightful indulgence when your stomach is growling after a full day of fasting. "We are definitely a bagel family," Leah Koenig, author of "The Jewish Cookbook," told Bon Appétit. "I make sure to have a stash of bagels from Shelsky's and plenty of scallion cream cheese, lox, sliced tomatoes, and—the underrated hero of the bagel platter—briny capers."

Of course, an empty, rumbling stomach might not completely appreciate a large, fatty starch bomb — tradition be damned. If you want to gently ease into breaking your fast, you should first start with a glass of water or tea, suggests Food Network. Then, you could move on to another Jewish-American classic — a bowl of hot chicken noodle soup, hopefully prepared by your bubbe.