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Yom Kippur is probably the best known Jewish holiday; together with Rosh Hashana it is called the High Holidays.
This is a serious yet not a sad day; on this day everyone tries to make his peace with God for everything they have done wrong in the past year. Only on this day did the priest enter the holiest part of the Temple. This is the origin of the word 'scapegoat'; a goat was (symbolically) laden with the collective sins of the whole community and sent off into the desert. (This only goes for sins against God though; one has to try and make ones own peace with other humans.)
Like all Jewish Holidays, Yom Kippur starts at sundown on the evening before. It is a day of fast on which food, drink and many other things are not allowed - leather shoes, for instance, since these were considered exceptionally comfortable in the days of the Temple. It is usually spent largely in shul.