Hi Izzy, we did a bit more investigation today and think we may have fixed a bug to get Hebcal for Classic Alexa working again. Can you give it a try? Not sure it’s going to work well on the newer Alexa Plus devices but we would welcome your feedback. 

Shana Tova!

Thanks for the careful report! Good news: this reading isn't actually missing — and it's not technically a Rosh Hashana reading, which is why it's not in the holiday tables.

Rosh Hashana itself has no afternoon (Mincha) Torah reading. The reason there's a Mincha reading this year is simply that Rosh Hashana Day 1 falls on Shabbat, and on every Shabbat afternoon we read the opening aliyot of the coming week's parsha. The parsha after Rosh Hashana 5787 is Ha'azinu, so the Shabbat-Mincha reading is Deuteronomy 32:1-12 (exactly the three aliyot you listed).

We publish these Shabbat-afternoon readings (which are identical to the Monday/Thursday weekday readings) in our weekday leyning spreadsheet rather than the holiday tables, to avoid confusion between the Shabbat morning and Shabbat afternoon services. You'll find Ha'azinu 32:1-12 there. 

https://www.hebcal.com/sedrot/weekday-diaspora-5787.csv

More on which files contain what: https://www.hebcal.com/home/48/download-aliyot-breakdown-of-torah-readings

By contrast, Yom Kippur Mincha (Leviticus 18 + Jonah) is in the holiday tables, because that one is an intrinsic part of the day itself, read every year regardless of whether YK falls on Shabbat or another day of the week.

Thank you for the bug report! We found the error and it is now fixed. Please refresh the web browser if you still see the error. 

Shana Tova!

We see two birthdays in Google Calendar.

If you’re still running into an issue, could you share the exact steps you took and what you saw (a screenshot would help), so we can pin down what’s different in your case?

There is a URL at the bottom of Google Calendar events, maybe you could send it by email to webmaster@hebcal.com and we can try to debug further?

Hi hudis100,

Thanks for the report, but this actually works as expected — you can have multiple people’s birthdays listed on the same date. I just tested it myself and confirmed it:

https://www.hebcal.com/yahrzeit/edit/01m0r2aps88teecmme9vx1jj1a

Both Person1 and Person2 show up correctly as separate entries on 10 Feb 2026 (23rd of Sh’vat), and again in every subsequent year (5787, 5788, etc.). So there’s no bug here — the calendar handles overlapping dates fine.

If you’re still running into an issue, could you share the exact steps you took and what you saw (a screenshot would help), so we can pin down what’s different in your case?

Best, Michael

Hi Kim,

Thanks so much for the kind words and for flagging this! I checked, and the page is actually working correctly — it did switch to the Israel calendar.

The reason it looks similar to the Diaspora list is that Passover in Israel is 7 days (one day of Yom Tov at the start, one at the end), while outside Israel it’s 8 days (two days of Yom Tov at the start and end). So for 2027:

Israel: Apr 22 (1st day), Apr 23–27 (Chol HaMoed), Apr 28 (last day)

Diaspora: Apr 22–23 (1st two days), Apr 24–27 (Chol HaMoed), Apr 28–29 (last two days)

The “Apr 21” date you see is Erev Pesach (the eve), not an extra festival day.

Let me know if anything still looks off — happy to dig further!

did you check the after sunset box?

Thu, 23 July 2026 = 9th of Av, 5786

https://www.hebcal.com/converter?gd=23&gm=7&gy=2026&g2h=1

Thu, 23 July 2026 after sunset = 10th of Av, 5786

https://www.hebcal.com/converter?gd=23&gm=7&gy=2026&gs=on&g2h=1

Hi Justin,

Short answer: no, I can't offer an "or later" / AGPLv3 option here, and it's not really my call to make even if I wanted to.

@hebcal/core is a descendant of a chain of GPL work I didn't originate — the original Emacs Lisp calendar code by Dershowitz and Reingold, Danny Sadinoff's C port, and Eyal Schachter's JS port, all released under GPL. Each of those was licensed strictly as GPL (not "GPL-2.0-or-later"), so I don't hold the rights to relicense the derived work under AGPLv3 or anything else — I'd need sign-off from the original authors, and I'm not in a position to get that.

A couple of options that might get you where you want to go without needing a relicense:

1. Keep @hebcal/core's GPL scope contained. If it only needs to compute dates/holidays server-side, you can put it behind a small internal service or API boundary rather than linking it directly into the codebase you want to license permissively. That's a common pattern for isolating a GPL dependency from the rest of an application (network-service separation avoids creating a single combined/derivative work), though I'd suggest getting a second opinion from someone with real legal expertise if the boundary matters for your project's compliance.

2. Use the hosted Hebcal.com REST API instead of the library. Content from the API is CC BY 4.0, not GPL — free for any use, including commercial, with attribution to Hebcal.com. If you just need holiday/date data rather than the library's code, that sidesteps the GPL question entirely.

Sorry I can't be more flexible on the license itself — it's inherited, not a choice I get to revisit. Happy to answer follow-up questions if useful.

Best,

Michael

If you already receive annual reminder emails for yahrzeits, Hebrew birthdays, or anniversaries, and would like to receive reminders at an additional email address, follow these steps:

1. Open your email program and find a message from Hebcal about one of your yahrzeit, birthday, or anniversary reminders.
2. Scroll to the bottom of the email and look for the Edit Yahrzeit, Edit Hebrew Birthday, or Edit Hebrew Anniversary link.
3. Click that link to go to hebcal.com.
4. Scroll up a bit and push the grey Email reminders button.
   
5. Enter an additional email address in the dialog box and push the blue Subscribe button to submit the form.
   
6. Check your new email address for a confirmation message from Hebcal.
7. Click the activation link inside that confirmation email.
8. Your anniversary calendar reminders will now be sent to the new address in addition to the original email address.

Hi Izzy,

Thanks so much for your patience, and sorry for the frustration this has caused — especially since we know you’ve genuinely tried everything on your end (the davening included, which we appreciate!).

Since Amazon released Alexa+, the older Alexa skills infrastructure that Hebcal relied on has largely stopped functioning correctly, and unfortunately this is outside of our control. We’ve spent considerable time trying to debug and fix the integration, but at this point we don’t believe it’s fixable on our end.

We’re sorry to say the Hebcal Alexa skill may need to be retired. We know this is disappointing news, especially for something you relied on regularly.

In the meantime, you can still get Hebcal info via:

• The Hebcal website/app directly
• Google Calendar or other calendar sync with Hebcal’s Jewish holiday feeds
• The Hebcal API, if you or someone you know wants to build a workaround

We’ll update this thread if anything changes with Amazon’s platform that makes the skill viable again. Thanks again for your patience and for flagging this.