Your comments

Hi, thanks for using Hebcal, and mo'adim l'simcha!

We're happy to continue to provide Torah Readings for holidays. You'll find them posted on the holiday page, for example

https://www.hebcal.com/holidays/sukkot-2023#reading


For the Israel version, visit this page:

https://www.hebcal.com/holidays/sukkot-2023?i=on#reading

Thanks for your message. Can you send us a screenshot of your calendar app showing a Yahrzeit reminder at 7:37pm? We don't think this reminder came from Hebcal. Any Yahrzeit reminder created by Hebcal would only be at 4:30pm or 8pm local time.

Note that Hebcal calendars for a city can have reminders for Candle lighting for erev Shabbat or erev Chag, Havdalah, or a public fast start/end at a time like 7:37pm. 

Thanks for using the Hebcal date conversion tool. You asked an excellent question!


Our website removes the bet before the month name because this seems to be more consistent with how Hebrew dates without nekudot are displayed elsewhere, both in the online and in the physical world. Both forms seems to be correct, although we don't have a source to recommend.


Moadim L'Simcha! We wish you a very happy Sukkot.

Thank you for using the Hebcal Yahrzeit + Anniversary calendar. Moadim L'Simcha! We wish you a very happy Sukkot.

Yahrzeit always begins at sundown and continues until sundown on the day of observance. It is customary to light a memorial candle at sundown as the Yahrzeit begins.

If a Yahrzeit begins on Friday night, it's customary to light the yahrzeit candle before Shabbat begins. If a Yahrzeit begins on Saturday night, it is customary to light the yahrzeit candle after Havdalah.


If you subscribe to our email Yahrzeit reminders, you will receive a message one week before the anniversary. This message does not specify what time to light a yahrzeit candle. It does also include an optional calendar reminder, typically set for 16:30 local time on weekdays and 20:00 local time on Saturday night.

To avoid any possibility that someone might light a yahrzeit candle after Shabbat begins, we will make a change to our calendar reminders to have them start earlier (14:30 local time) for any yahrzeit occurring on a Friday.

Thanks for letting us know! There are multiple ways to transliterate the name of the holiday and both spellings are considered acceptable.

Hi, thanks for using Hebcal and the FullCalendar integration. We're sorry to hear that the page is very slow.

We have an experimental approach that uses the Hebcal JavaScript APIs (instead of the REST API) to avoid fetching event data over the Internet. You still need to load the FullCalendar and Hebcal javascript files, but once they're loaded the page won't need to fetch additional data.


Try this approach to see if it improves your page speed?

https://gist.github.com/mjradwin/7145590367c8b88a194f8da5e9a8d325

Hi, thanks for using Hebcal.

Please note that because there are many holidays that fall on weekends this year, you'll find candle-lighting for 2nd day chag on Saturday night September 30th (for 2nd evening of Sukkot) and Saturday night October 7 (for erev Simchat Torah). In addition, you'll find Havdalah on Sunday night because this is when yontiff ends.

When there isn't a holiday on Sunday (for example, the weekend of Friday October 13 through Sunday October 15), you'll find Havdalah on Saturday night as expected.

To add a bit more detail,

תִּשְׁרֵי (transliterated Tishrei or Tishri) is the 7th month of the Hebrew year, is 30 days long, and corresponds to September or October on the Gregorian calendar.


The holiday that occurs on the 1st day of Tishrei is called Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. Rosh Hashanah is a major holiday.


The first day of Tishrei is not considered Rosh Chodesh. Rosh Chodesh is a minor holiday that occurs at the beginning of every month on the Hebrew calendar. In the case of Tishrei, the major holiday of Rosh Hashana takes precedence.


Later in the month we observe Tzom Gedaliah on the 3rd, Yom Kippur on the 10th, Sukkot (from the 15th-21st), and Shmini Atzeret (on the 22nd) and Simchat Torah (on the 23rd in the Diaspora).


For more info, read The Month of Tishri – Judaism 101.

Thanks for using Hebcal! This is entirely intentional. There is no holiday called "Rosh Chodesh Tishrei." The holiday on the 1st of Tishrei is called Rosh Hashanah.

So sorry to hear that you are having trouble! The iPhone & iPad Jewish holidays download step-by-step instructions have been tested by thousands of Hebcal users and are working correctly. We confirmed again today on a test iPhone that the instructions continue to work fine, so there do not appear to be any problems on our end.


Perhaps there is a problem with your device? Please consider restarting your device (this sometimes fixes an odd problem like this one). You can also contact Apple support for general help with their Calendar app.

Shana Tova u'Metukah! We wish you a happy and healthy New Year.