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Author Archives: mradwin

Chanting Torah – audio of parsha

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In addition to providing details about the weekly Torah readings, Hebcal makes it convenient to listen to the audio of a professional cantor chanting Torah trope.

If you visit the Hebcal parsha pages from a larger display (desktop/laptop computer or a tablet), you can click the speaker icon to visit Sefaria‘s embedded PocketTorah audio.

The Sefaria native mobile app does not currently support the PocketTorah audio, so the Hebcal speaker icons are not displayed on mobile phones. The audio is displayed only on Sefaria website and depends on a larger screen, such as a desktop/laptop computer or a tablet.

For many years, Hebcal linked to audio provided by the World ORT “Navigating the Bible II” website. Unfortunately, after 20+ years on the Internet, the ORT website stopped working in July/August 2022.

If you liked Navigating the Bible, you can use the aforementioned Sefaria integration. Or, you might consider trying an alternative, such as PocketTorah (free) or TropeTrainer (not free, but very high quality). Hebcal is not affiliated with World ORT or with TropeTrainer or PocketTorah.

Original post from May 2013

We’re pleased to share that ORT’s Navigating the Bible website has been upgraded to MP3. For many years, Hebcal.com has linked to ORT’s excellent site for Torah readings with Hebrew, translation, transliteration and chanting.

When released 13+ years ago, ORT’s trope/chanting audio was based on a format called RealAudio. Unfortunately, RealAudio doesn’t work very well on modern devices like tablets.

As of May 2013, ORT has upgraded to MP3 – a more modern audio format. Users can listen to individual verses or download whole readings to listen to on their phones, tablets or other mp3 players.

Our sincere thanks to Vladimir Dribinskiy, ORT’s Chief Program Officer, and to the entire World ORT team!

Outlook.com Jewish holidays download

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The following instructions demonstrate how to subscribe to a Hebcal calendar on Outlook.com (sometimes called “Outlook Web”). Outlook.com calendars are used by Windows 10 & 11, Outlook Mac, and Microsoft email accounts such as Hotmail.com, MSN.com and Live.com.

1. Open a web browser on your computer.

2. Fill out the form with your preferences and click the Create Calendar button

3. Click the Download… button

4. Select the Outlook Web option from the Download dialog box. Then click the Add to Outlook.com button.

5. If prompted, login using your Microsoft username and password

6. When Outlook Web prompts you to Subscribe from web, confirm your options (such as color and charm) and then click the Import button

Google Calendar – delete Hebcal

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If you subscribed to a Hebcal calendar using our recommended Google Calendar Jewish holidays subscription option, follow our Google Calendar unsubscribe instructions to remove it from your Google Calendar list.

If you manually downloaded Hebcal events using our Google Calendar alternative instructions and imported them into separate calendar (listed under “My calendars”), follow these instructions:

  1. On your computer, open Google Calendar.
  2. In the top right, click Settings  >  Settings.
  3. In the left column, find the calendar you want to delete.
  4. Click the name of the calendar.
  5. Click Remove calendar >  Delete > Delete permanently.

If you manually downloaded Hebcal events and merged them with (embedded them into) your personal calendar, the process is more difficult. Unfortunately, Google does not provide a simple way to bulk delete multiple calendar events. Although there really isn’t another option than to delete each event individually, you can change your view to Schedule view to see more events at once. From here you can delete each event individually and even make use of the search feature to find the events that you’re looking for.

  1. While in Google Calendar, click on the date range dropdown at the top right and change the view to Schedule view.
  2. Click on the magnifying glass icon at the top and search for the events that you’d like to delete. For example, try searching for “hebcal”
  3. Click on an event and then on the trash can symbol in the popup to delete it.

For other recommendations on how to remove multiple events from Google Calendar, see this excellent article: Google Calendar – Delete Multiple Events At Once (2022).

Nach Yomi

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We’re pleased to announce the availability of a dedicated Nach Yomi feed to our Jewish Calendar downloads.

Nach Yomi is a daily regimen of learning the books of Nevi’im (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Writings). “Nach” includes the Prophets (Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah and others) and the Writings (such as Psalms, Job and the Five Megillot). The Nach Yomi cycle takes two years to complete.