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Started

Hebrew title for a recurring birthday event

amitai glauber 6 months ago updated 6 months ago 10

Currently, you allow creating a recurring Hebrew birthday event. But you force the user to accept the title you give with the text "'s 19th Hebrew Birthday". I don't like it because it is displayed on my device from left to right, and also because it is an English title when all the events in my Google calendar are in Hebrew. Can you give the option to choose the text, or at least choose whether the text will be in Hebrew or English?

Thanks, this is helpful. יום השנה seems much more generic because it could also be used for an anniversary, such as a wedding anniversary?

What about יום פטירתו? This is something a friend in Israel suggested.

We're going to experiment with יאָרצײַט for now, and are really open to other suggestions, especially if there are good sources you can point us to.

I'm glad you accepted my suggestion regarding the birthday text. Thanks! It will definitely be useful for me.

Concerning your question,

I invite you to look at the Hebrew Wikipedia: https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9D_%D7%94%D7%A9%D7%A0%D7%94_(%D7 %99%D7%94%D7%93%D7%95%D7%AA)

You can see there that "יום השנה", which is also the title of the Wikipedia entry, is actually "Yarzeit". That's why I think "יום השנה" is more appropriate in the meaning of death date. What's more, "Yarzeit" is a Yiddish word, and is therefore known mainly among Jews who came from the Ashkenazi countries, but less known among Jews who came from other areas.

Regarding "יום פטירתו", if you want to write a number after that, you should write "יום הפטירה ה-X של סבא רבא", for example. But I think it sounds a bit strange.

I'm not using it right now anyway, so it doesn't matter that much to me. Do what you think.

If you already talked about "Anniversary", your translation on the website right now is "יום השנה" and I think it sounds terrible in Hebrew. It sounds like a death date, as I showed you above on Wikipedia. You must mean a couple's wedding day, right? It should be changed to "יום נישואין X לאבא ואמא", for example (and then also you won't have a conflict with "יום השנה" in the meaning of a "death date").

By the way, if you still choose to use the word "Yartzeit", write it like this: "יארצייט" (not like your current text in the website, i.e. without the dots).

Thanks, this is all tremendously helpful. I understand that although יום השנה sounds generic to me, it has an implied meaning of יום השנה שנפטר (please forgive my poor Hebrew).


In English, the term "anniversary" is often used for "wedding anniversary", but it has a more neutral meaning - "anniversary" could easily be used for measuring the number of years that you have been employed in the same job, or another momentous day (like the date you became a citizen). Maybe this is because in American culture (outside of Judaism) the anniversary of a day of death is not typically observed.

If Hebcal used יום נישואין for the "Anniversary" type on our calendar, it would probably be correct for most instances - and based on our experimental implementation it would only be used for names that contained Hebrew letters - so this sounds like a good step.

I understood your explanation. It is interesting.

Yes, in Hebrew I don't know any other use of "יום השנה".

I saw the changes you made on the site. Cheers!

(I still think that "יום השנה" is better than "יארצייט", if you were convinced by what I wrote above.)

Just note that you should change the wording for "יום נישואין" like this: for "אבא ואמא" for example, you should write "יום נישואין 50 לאבא ואמא" (and not "יום נישואין ה-50 של אבא ואמא"). This way you also maintain consistency with what you wrote for a birthday ("יום הולדת 50 לאמא").

Thanks for the catch about ום נישואין. We've changed the rendering of "יום נישואין 50 לאבא ואמא" to be consistent with your suggestion for birthdays.


Thanks again for the continued suggestion that "יום השנה" is better than "יארצייט" - the Wikipedia article is persuasive. My Hebrew comprehension is very poor, but Google Translate gives me a very general sense of what it's trying to say.


I'm going to consult a bit with the Hebcal co-founder Danny (who moved to Israel 25+ years ago) before replacing יארצייט with יום השנה

Started

We've begun implementing this and would like your recommendation for how to pick good titles for these calendar events. I am not a Hebrew speaker so I'm making some guesses.

Here is a possible rendering of a yahrzeit for an event with the person name סבא רבא

נחלה ה-24 של סבא רבא (י״ג חשון)
And similar rendering for a birthday for a person name of אִמָא
יום הולדת ה-50 של אִמָא (ט״ז שבט)

Should we specify יום הולדת עברי instead of just יום הולדת to make it clear that the birthday is based on the Hebrew calendar and not the Gregorian calendar?

Is של סבא רבא better than לסבא רבא ?

I have a few comments on your post:

1. The word "נחלה" is not appropriate. I have not seen this word used in this context. In Hebrew, the words "יארצייט" or "יום השנה" are used.

2. I think it is most appropriate to write "יום השנה ה-24 לסבא רבא".

3. The text "יום הולדת ה-50 של אמא" should be replaced with "יום ההולדת ה-50 של אמא" or simply "יום הולדת 50 לאמא". I recommend the last option.

+1
Planned

Thanks for the suggestion. We can investigate doing some simple analysis of the text and change the English to Hebrew if we detect Hebrew characters in the name.

In the meantime, of you edit the calendar and choose "other" type, the algorithm will use the birthday rules but will not display the year number or "Hebrew Birthday"

Please note that the "other" type is not recommended for Yahrzeit because the rules are a bit more complicated for Yahrzeits occuring in Adar, Cheshvan and Kislev

https://www.hebcal.com/home/54/anniversaries-adar-cheshvan-kislev