Holidays

Browse the calender to see upcoming Israeli holidays (marked in blue). Note that holidays start at sunset, a day before the date shown on calendar. See a description of the holidays, at the bottom of the page.

Main Holidays:

Rosh Ha’shana – New Year
Rosh Hashanah occurs on the first and second days of Tishri which comes around September.In Hebrew, Rosh Hashanah means, literally, “head of the year” or “first of the year.” Rosh Hashanah is commonly known as the Jewish New Year. In Rosh Ha’shana we will eat apples dipped in honey, a symbol of our wish for a sweet new year.

Kippur Day – Day of Atonement
The name “Yom Kippur” literally means “Day of Atonement” and that pretty much explains what the holiday is. It is a day set aside to “afflict the soul” to atone for the sins of the past year.
Yom Kippur is probably the most important holiday of the Jewish year. Many Jews who do not observe any other Jewish custom will refrain from work, fast and many will attend synagogue on this day.

Our Sukkah at evening

Sukkot – Festival of Booths
Literally means booths. Sukkot has a dual significance: historical and agricultural. The holiday commemorates the forty-year period during which the children of Israel were wandering in the desert, living in temporary shelters. Sukkot is also a harvest festival, and is sometimes referred to as Chag Ha-Asif, the Festival of Ingathering.
One of the characteristics of this holiday is building a Sukah (“booth”) and decorating it with dates and other fruits, some of which have a religious meaning. See our sukkah here

Simchat Tora – Rejoicing of the Torah
Celebrating the day the Tora (first book of the bible) was given to the Jewish people. Literally means “Rejoicing in the Torah.”

Hanukah – Festival of Lights
Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of re-dedication, also known as the festival of lights, is an eight day festival. Hanuka is to celebrate the re-dedication of the Temple from the Greeks.
Traditions in this holiday is lighting candles, eating sufgania (a very tasty Jewish kind of donut filled with Jam).

Tu Be’shvat – New Year of the Trees
Is a holiday also known as the New Year for Trees. There are few customs or observances related to this holiday: eating a new fruit on this day and eating dried fruits and planting trees. Just for your general knowledge, My name- Ilan,  means a “tree” in Hebrew, so I guess it’s my new year too

My friends dressed

Purim – Festival of Lots

Purim is one of the most joyous and fun holidays on the Jewish calendar.
It commemorates a time when the Jewish people living in Persia were saved from a bad end . The story of Purim is told in the Biblical book of Esther.
Traditions in this holiday is to send out gifts of food or drink, and to make gifts to charity. To eat “Haman Ears” cookies. Also to hold carnival-like celebrations on this day, to perform plays and parodies, and to hold beauty contests and just laugh and be happy. In this day the Jewish children and elderly put on costumes.

Passover
Pesach in Hebrew literally means “to pass over”. Agriculturally, it represents the beginning of the harvest season in Israel, but little attention is paid to this aspect of the holiday. The primary observances of Pesach are related to the Exodus from Egypt after generations of slavery.
Traditions are the Seder evening meal and eating a Maza throughout the entire holiday (kind of a yeast-less cracker) instead of bread.

Holocaust Remembrance Day
A memorial and a mourning day for the 6 million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust.

Israel Memorial Day
Israeli Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terrorism Remembrance Day. In 2010, Israel honored the memory of 22,684 soldiers killed in the line of duty and 2,431 civilian terror victims.

Independence Day
Cellebrating the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Lag Ba’omer – 33rd Day of the Omer
(The numerical equivalent of the Hebrew letter “lamed” is thirty. Similarly, the numerical equivalent of the letter “gimmel” is three = 33) This Jewish holiday celebrates the 33rd day of Omer, which is counted from Passover through Shabuoth.
“Omer” means: a specific measure of barley that was brought to the Temple on the second day of Passover and until that offering was made, no grain from the new year’s crop was to be eaten.
In Lag Ba’omer you will see bonfires dotting the landscape as far as the eye can see and lots of children having fun.

Shavuot- Festival of Weeks
Shavu’ot, the Festival of Weeks, is the second of the three major festivals with both historical and agricultural significance.
Agriculturally, it commemorates the time when the first fruits were harvested and brought to the Temple, and is known as Hag ha-Bikkurim (the Festival of the First Fruits). Historically, it celebrates the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, and is also known as Hag Matan Torateinu (the Festival of the Giving of Our Torah).

Fast of the 9th of Av
Tisha B’Av means the ninth (day) of Av (Av: 11th Hebrew month).
Although this holiday is primarily meant to commemorate the destruction of the Temple, it is appropriate to consider on this day the many other tragedies of the Jewish people, many of which occurred on this day, most notably the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.

Tu Be’av
Tu Be’av means the 15th of Av (Av: 11th Hebrew month).
The holiday has number of significant meanings. The holiday was instituted in Second Temple times to mark the beginning of the grape harvest. Since Yom Kippur also marked the end of the grape harvest. The Romans permitted the Jews to bury their dead. Tradition later on was that unmarried girls of Jerusalem would dress in borrowed white garments and go out to dance in the vineyards.
The secular name for this holiday is “Day of Love” and on this day couples (married and not) give gifts to each other.