A fresh beginning
By the shores of the Mediterranean in the southern Israeli city of Ashdod, ultra-Orthodox Jewish men are silhouetted as they pray during Tashlich - a ceremony during which believers symbolically cast the sins of the previous year into the water.
They are celebrating the ritual ahead of Yom Kippur, a day of atonement and the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, which this year starts at sundown on September 13.
Children of an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish family look at a chicken before they perform the Kaparot ritual in Bnei Brak near Tel Aviv.
During the traditional ritual, a prayer is recited as a white chicken is waved over a person's head, symbolically passing on their sins to the bird, which is then killed as a sign of atonement.
An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man performs the Kaparot ritual in Jerusalem's Mea Shearim neighbourhood, as a young boy looks on.
A girl wears a plastic bag over her head to avoid getting dirty as she carries out the ritual.
An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man performs the Kaparot ritual, with a chicken held high over his head.
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men hold chickens as they stand in line to finish the ritual.
Members of the community watch as a chicken is slaughtered.
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish children shake their clothes as they stand in front of a plastic pool containing goldfish during a Tashlich ritual, during which they symbolically cast their sins into the water.
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men pray as they observe Tashlich near the shore of the Mediterranean.
A row of men pray as they perform Tashlich.
