The Jewish year: holidays, months and Shabbat

The head of the year: shofar, sweetness and an honest accounting.

Hebrew date

1-2 Tishrei

Dates in Israel

• 2-3 October 2027 Hebrew year 5788

Greeting

שָׁנָה טוֹבָה Shana Tova A good year

Rosh Hashanah opens the Hebrew year and the ten days of repentance that close on Yom Kippur. The shofar is sounded on both mornings, though not when the day falls on Shabbat. Meals begin with apple dipped in honey, and many spend long hours in synagogue. Unusually among the festivals it is kept for two days in Israel as well as in the diaspora.

A dawn to nightfall fast for the murder of Gedaliah and the end of Judean self-rule.

Hebrew date

3 Tishrei

Dates in Israel

• 4 October 2027 Hebrew year 5788

Gedaliah ben Achikam was appointed governor over the Judeans left in the land after the Babylonian destruction, and his assassination ended the last remnant of Jewish self-government there. The fast runs from dawn to nightfall on 3 Tishrei, the day after Rosh Hashanah, and moves to the 4th when the 3rd falls on Shabbat. It is one of the four minor fasts tied to the destruction of the Temple, and many Jews today do not keep it.

Twenty-five hours of fasting, prayer and repair, the most widely kept day in the Jewish year.

Hebrew date

10 Tishrei

Dates in Israel

• 11 October 2027 Hebrew year 5788

Greeting

גְּמַר חֲתִימָה טוֹבָה G’mar Chatima Tova May you be sealed for good

Yom Kippur is a full fast from sundown to nightfall the next day, spent largely in synagogue, from Kol Nidrei through the closing Neilah service and a single long blast of the shofar. Traditional practice adds abstaining from washing, leather shoes and marital relations, and many wear white. It is one day in Israel and in the diaspora alike, and it is kept in some form by a great many Jews who observe nothing else all year.

A week in a temporary hut, with the four species and the first prayers for rain.

Hebrew date

15-21 Tishrei

Dates in Israel

• 16-22 October 2027 Hebrew year 5788

Greeting

חַג שָׂמֵחַ Chag Sameach Happy festival

For seven days many families eat, and some sleep, in a sukkah: a booth roofed with cut branches loose enough to see the sky through. The lulav and etrog are held together and waved during morning prayers. The first day is a full festival, the first two in the diaspora, and the days after it are chol hamoed, a half-holiday when most work is permitted.

The seventh day of Sukkot: seven circuits, and willow branches struck on the floor.

Hebrew date

21 Tishrei

Dates in Israel

• 22 October 2027 Hebrew year 5788

Hoshana Rabbah closes Sukkot with seven circuits around the synagogue carrying the four species, after which a bundle of willow branches is beaten against the ground. Tradition treats it as the last sealing of the judgement opened at Rosh Hashanah, and some stay up the night before to study. Work is permitted, and Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities differ in the melodies and in the order of the prayers.

The eighth day: a separate festival attached to the end of Sukkot.

Hebrew date

22 Tishrei

Dates in Israel

• 23 October 2027 Hebrew year 5788

Greeting

חַג שָׂמֵחַ Chag Sameach Happy festival

Shemini Atzeret is its own festival rather than a day of Sukkot, and it carries the year’s first formal prayer for rain. In Israel it is one day and includes Simchat Torah; in the diaspora it is the first of two days, with Simchat Torah on the second. Many communities also say Yizkor, the memorial prayer, on this morning.

The Torah reading ends and begins again the same morning, with dancing that runs late.

Hebrew date

22 Tishrei in Israel, 23 Tishrei in the diaspora

Dates in Israel

• 23 October 2027 Hebrew year 5788

Greeting

חַג שָׂמֵחַ Chag Sameach Happy festival

The annual cycle of Torah reading finishes with the last verses of Deuteronomy and restarts immediately with the opening of Genesis, so the scroll is never closed. The scrolls are carried in seven hakafot, circuits of singing and dancing that often spill out into the street. In Israel it falls on 22 Tishrei together with Shemini Atzeret; in the diaspora it is the following day.

Eight nights of light for a rededicated Temple and an unlikely victory.

Hebrew date

25 Kislev to 2 or 3 Tevet

Dates in Israel

• 5-12 December 2026 Hebrew year 5787
• 25 December 2027 to 1 January 2028 Hebrew year 5788

Greeting

חַג אוּרִים שָׂמֵחַ Chag Urim Sameach Happy festival of lights

Chanukah marks the Maccabean recapture and rededication of the Temple in the second century BCE, and the tradition of one day’s oil that burned for eight. A light is added each night and set where it can be seen from outside, kindled by the shamash. Ashkenazi kitchens fry latkes; Sephardi, Mizrahi and Israeli ones fry sufganiyot and other doughnuts, the same idea reached from a different direction. Work is permitted throughout, so it fits around ordinary life.

A dawn to nightfall fast for the day the siege of Jerusalem began.

Hebrew date

10 Tevet

Dates in Israel

• 20 December 2026 Hebrew year 5787
• 9 January 2028 Hebrew year 5788

The tenth of Tevet marks the start of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem that ended in the destruction of the First Temple. It is a minor fast, dawn until nightfall, with additions to the prayers and no other restrictions. The Israeli Chief Rabbinate also set it as a general day of Kaddish for Holocaust victims whose date of death is unknown.

The new year of the trees, now a planting and environmental day in Israel.

Hebrew date

15 Shevat

Dates in Israel

• 23 January 2027 Hebrew year 5787
• 12 February 2028 Hebrew year 5788

Greeting

חַג שָׂמֵחַ Chag Sameach Happy festival

The Mishnah lists 15 Shevat as the new year for trees, a cut-off date for tithing fruit rather than a festival. Kabbalists in Tzfat later built a seder around it, with fruits and four cups of wine, and that seder has been widely revived. In Israel it is a planting day for schoolchildren and a fixture of environmental campaigning, and the almond blossom is usually out.

The little Purim of Adar I, marked only in a leap year.

Hebrew date

14 Adar I, in leap years only

Dates in Israel

• 21 February 2027 Hebrew year 5787

In a leap year the 14th of Adar I passes without the megillah, the gifts of food or the festive meal, all of which wait for Adar II. It is marked only by leaving out the penitential Tachanun prayer and by a modest lift in mood. In a common year there is no Purim Katan at all, which is why only the leap year 5787 has a date here.

A short fast on the eve of Purim, recalling the fast Esther called for.

Hebrew date

13 Adar, Adar II in a leap year

Dates in Israel

• 22 March 2027 Hebrew year 5787
• 9 March 2028 Hebrew year 5788

The fast runs from dawn to nightfall on 13 Adar and ends as Purim opens that evening with the reading of the megillah. It recalls the fast Esther asked the Jews of Shushan to keep before she approached the king. When the 13th falls on Shabbat the fast is moved back to the Thursday before, which is why the 5788 date is earlier than you might expect.

The megillah, costumes, gifts of food and a day that is deliberately loud.

Hebrew date

14 Adar, Adar II in a leap year

Dates in Israel

• 23 March 2027 Hebrew year 5787
• 12 March 2028 Hebrew year 5788

Greeting

חַג פּוּרִים שָׂמֵחַ Chag Purim Sameach Happy Purim

Purim recalls the rescue of the Jews of the Persian empire as told in the Book of Esther, which is read aloud twice, once at night and once in the morning. There are four obligations: hearing the megillah, sending gifts of food to friends, giving to the poor and eating a festive daytime meal. Costumes and street parties are custom rather than law, and Israeli towns hold them at wildly different scales. In a leap year Purim falls in Adar II.

Purim kept a day later in cities walled since the time of Joshua, above all Jerusalem.

Hebrew date

15 Adar, Adar II in a leap year

Dates in Israel

• 24 March 2027 Hebrew year 5787
• 13 March 2028 Hebrew year 5788

Greeting

חַג פּוּרִים שָׂמֵחַ Chag Purim Sameach Happy Purim

The Book of Esther records that the Jews of the walled capital fought a day longer and celebrated on the 15th, so cities walled in the days of Joshua keep Purim then. In practice that means Jerusalem, while Tel Aviv, Haifa and the whole diaspora keep the 14th. A few places whose ancient status is uncertain, Tiberias among them, read the megillah on both days.

The seder, a week without leaven, and the story of leaving Egypt told out loud.

Hebrew date

15-21 Nisan in Israel, 15-22 Nisan in the diaspora

Dates in Israel

• 22-28 April 2027 Hebrew year 5787
• 11-17 April 2028 Hebrew year 5788

Greeting

חַג כָּשֵׁר וְשָׂמֵחַ Chag Kasher V’Sameach A kosher and happy festival

Pesach opens with the seder, a structured meal built around the Haggadah, four cups of wine, matzah and the children’s questions. For seven days in Israel and eight in the diaspora chametz, leavened grain, is neither eaten nor owned; Ashkenazi custom also sets aside kitniyot such as rice and legumes, while Sephardi and Mizrahi communities eat them freely. The first and last days are full festival days, the first two and last two in the diaspora, with chol hamoed in between.

Forty-nine counted days from the second night of Pesach to Shavuot.

Hebrew date

16 Nisan to 5 Sivan

Dates in Israel

• 23 April to 10 June 2027 Hebrew year 5787
• 12 April to 30 May 2028 Hebrew year 5788

From the second night of Pesach the days are counted aloud one at a time until Shavuot, a chain that ties leaving Egypt to receiving the Torah. Much of the stretch is kept as a period of mourning, with weddings, haircuts and live music set aside, though communities differ over exactly which weeks are affected. Lag BaOmer, the 33rd day, interrupts it.

Holocaust remembrance day in Israel, marked by a siren the whole country stops for.

Hebrew date

27 Nisan

Dates in Israel

• 4 May 2027 Hebrew year 5787
• 24 April 2028 Hebrew year 5788

Yom HaZikaron laShoah velaGvurah was set by the Knesset for 27 Nisan, a week after Pesach and near the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, and it shifts by a day when it would fall next to Shabbat. At 10am a two-minute siren sounds across the country and everything halts where it stands, drivers included. Places of entertainment close the evening before and ceremonies are held at Yad Vashem and in every school; some Orthodox communities instead mark the Holocaust on 10 Tevet or on Tisha B’Av.

Memorial day for Israel’s fallen soldiers and victims of terror.

Hebrew date

4 Iyar

Dates in Israel

• 11 May 2027 Hebrew year 5787
• 1 May 2028 Hebrew year 5788

Two sirens frame the day, one minute at 8pm as it begins and two minutes at 11am the next morning, and the country halts for both. Ceremonies fill military cemeteries, schools and Mount Herzl, and almost every Israeli family has a name of its own to read. It ends at nightfall, when the flags rise from half-mast and Yom HaAtzmaut begins, a change of key that visitors usually find abrupt.

Israeli independence day, which begins the moment memorial day ends.

Hebrew date

5 Iyar

Dates in Israel

• 12 May 2027 Hebrew year 5787
• 2 May 2028 Hebrew year 5788

Greeting

חַג עַצְמָאוּת שָׂמֵחַ Chag Atzmaut Sameach Happy Independence Day

Yom HaAtzmaut marks the declaration of the State of Israel on 5 Iyar 5708, 14 May 1948. The evening opens with a torch-lighting ceremony on Mount Herzl and street celebrations, and the day itself belongs to barbecues in every park, an air force flypast and the international Bible quiz. Religious communities differ over how to mark it: many say Hallel, with or without its blessing, some add a prayer for the state, and some do not mark it liturgically at all. The date moves by a day or two when 5 Iyar would fall next to Shabbat.

The 33rd day of the Omer: bonfires, haircuts and a huge pilgrimage to Meron.

Hebrew date

18 Iyar

Dates in Israel

• 25 May 2027 Hebrew year 5787
• 14 May 2028 Hebrew year 5788

The mourning of the Omer lifts for the day, so weddings and haircuts resume and children build bonfires out of scrap wood they have been collecting for weeks. It is associated with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, whose traditional burial place at Meron in the Galilee draws enormous overnight crowds. In some communities a three-year-old boy has his first haircut there, a ceremony called upsherin or chalaka.

Marks the day Israeli forces entered the Old City in the 1967 war.

Hebrew date

28 Iyar

Dates in Israel

• 4 June 2027 Hebrew year 5787
• 24 May 2028 Hebrew year 5788

Yom Yerushalayim marks 28 Iyar 5727, 7 June 1967, when Israeli forces entered the Old City and the Western Wall came under Israeli control. It is kept with prayers of thanksgiving in religious Zionist communities and a state ceremony, and passes almost unnoticed elsewhere. It is also contested: the Flag March through the Muslim Quarter draws large crowds and regular protest, and Palestinians mark the same events very differently.

The giving of the Torah at Sinai, marked with all-night study and dairy food.

Hebrew date

6 Sivan in Israel, 6-7 Sivan in the diaspora

Dates in Israel

• 11 June 2027 Hebrew year 5787
• 31 May 2028 Hebrew year 5788

Greeting

חַג שָׂמֵחַ Chag Sameach Happy festival

Shavuot closes the Omer count and commemorates the giving of the Torah at Sinai. It is also the wheat harvest festival and the day the Book of Ruth is read. Many stay up through the night studying, a custom called Tikkun Leil Shavuot, and walk to prayers at first light; dairy meals are the near-universal custom, with the reasons offered afterwards rather than before. It is one day in Israel and two in the diaspora.

Three weeks of mourning between the breaching of the walls and the fall of the Temple.

Hebrew date

17 Tammuz to 9 Av

Dates in Israel

• 22 July to 12 August 2027 Hebrew year 5787
• 11 July to 1 August 2028 Hebrew year 5788

The period runs from the fast of 17 Tammuz, when the walls of Jerusalem were breached, to Tisha B’Av, when both Temples were destroyed. Weddings and haircuts are set aside throughout, and from 1 Av the restrictions tighten into the nine days, when many also avoid meat, wine and bathing for pleasure. Sephardi practice generally keeps the meat and wine restriction only in the week in which Tisha B’Av itself falls, so the intensity varies a good deal between communities.

A dawn to nightfall fast for the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem.

Hebrew date

17 Tammuz

Dates in Israel

• 22 July 2027 Hebrew year 5787
• 11 July 2028 Hebrew year 5788

The seventeenth of Tammuz marks the breach of Jerusalem’s walls before the destruction of the Second Temple, and the Mishnah attaches four further calamities to the same date. It is a minor fast, dawn to nightfall, and it opens the Three Weeks. When it falls on Shabbat it is kept the next day.

The saddest day in the calendar: a full fast for the destruction of both Temples.

Hebrew date

9 Av

Dates in Israel

• 12 August 2027 Hebrew year 5787
• 1 August 2028 Hebrew year 5788

Tisha B’Av is a 25-hour fast with the same restrictions as Yom Kippur, opened by the reading of Lamentations by low light, with people sitting on the floor or on low stools. Both Temples are traditionally held to have fallen on this date, and later catastrophes, including the 1492 expulsion from Spain, have been attached to it. Practice varies widely across denominations, and some communities mark it briefly or not at all. When 9 Av falls on Shabbat the fast moves to the 10th.

A midsummer day of matchmaking in antiquity, now a day of love in Israel.

Hebrew date

15 Av

Dates in Israel

• 18 August 2027 Hebrew year 5787
• 7 August 2028 Hebrew year 5788

The Mishnah describes 15 Av as one of the happiest days of the year, when unmarried women went out to dance in the vineyards in borrowed white dresses so that nobody could be told apart by wealth. The day fell out of use for many centuries and has been revived in Israel as Chag HaAhava, a day for weddings, proposals and a great deal of advertising. Nothing is added to the liturgy beyond leaving out the penitential Tachanun prayer.

The new moon: a small monthly festival that opens each Hebrew month.

Hebrew date

1 of every Hebrew month, with the 30th of the month before it where there is one

Dates in Israel

• Cheshvan: 31 October to 1 November 2027 Hebrew year 5788

Greeting

חֹדֶשׁ טוֹב Chodesh Tov A good month

Rosh Chodesh marks the head of each Hebrew month and lasts one or two days depending on whether the outgoing month held 29 or 30. An abbreviated Hallel is said, a Musaf prayer is added, and fasting and eulogies are set aside. It has long been associated with women in particular, and many communities now hold women’s Rosh Chodesh gatherings. The dates given here are the first Rosh Chodesh of each year, the two days of Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan; the rest follow every 29 or 30 days.

Shabbat runs from sundown on Friday to nightfall on Saturday, every week, and it is the oldest fixed point in the Jewish calendar. Traditional practice sets aside the categories of creative work named in the Torah and in rabbinic law: no commerce, no driving, no writing, no switching electricity on or off. What that looks like in a given home ranges from full halakhic observance to Friday night dinner and nothing further, and both are ordinary.

Candles and havdalah

Candles are lit at home before sundown on Friday, commonly 18 minutes before it and 40 minutes before it in Jerusalem, following long-standing local custom. Once they are lit Shabbat has begun for whoever lit them, so a printed candle-lighting time is a deadline rather than a suggestion. Two candles are the widespread custom, though many households add one for each child.

Shabbat ends at nightfall on Saturday, when three stars are out, with havdalah: a cup of wine, a box of spices and a braided candle with more than one wick. The blessings mark the separation between Shabbat and the ordinary week, and the spices are passed round to carry a little of it forward. Communities differ over how long after sundown nightfall is reckoned, from roughly half an hour to 72 minutes.

For exact times, check a local listing.

Greetings

• שַׁבָּת שָׁלוֹם Shabbat Shalom A peaceful Shabbat The standard greeting in Israel, from Friday morning until Shabbat ends.
• שַׁבָּת שָׁלוֹם וּמְבֹרָךְ Shabbat Shalom u’Mevorach A peaceful and blessed Shabbat Common in Sephardi and Mizrahi communities, often as a warmer reply.
• גוט שבת Gut Shabbos Good Shabbos Yiddish, used in Ashkenazi and especially Hasidic communities. Yiddish is written without nikkud.
• שָׁבוּעַ טוֹב Shavua Tov A good week Said after havdalah on Saturday night.

Candles, Kiddush and Havdalah in the siddur