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Author Archives: mradwin

Pesach Sheni, Erev Purim, Erev Tish’a B’Av

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By popular demand, we’ve added Pesach Sheni, a minor holiday that comes every year on the 14th of Iyyar, one month after Passover.

We have also added Erev Purim and Erev Tish’a B’Av dates to the Hebcal calendar on the days prior to Purim and Tish’a B’Av. Previously the “Erev” dates were only displayed for major yom tov holidays, but both of these holidays have significant evening-time congregational events associated with them.

Yahoo! Calendar Jewish holidays download

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Follow these instructions to add a Hebcal Jewish holiday calendar 5-year feed to Yahoo! Calendar.

  1. Go to https://www.hebcal.com/hebcal if you’re downloading a holiday calendar, or https://www.hebcal.com/yahrzeit if you’re downloading a Yahrzeit + Anniversary calendar.
  2. Fill out the form with your preferences and click the Create Calendar button
  3. Click the Download… button
  4. Select the “Yahoo! Calendar” option from the Download dialog box
  5. Copy the entire web address from Hebcal.com
  6. Go to your Yahoo! Calendar, and click the “+” button next to “Calendars” on the left side of the page
    Yahoo Calendar add iCal URL
  7. Click Subscribe to Calendar
  8. Paste the web address into the “Email or iCal address” window
    Yahoo Calendar add iCal URL modal
  9. Click Next at the top of the page
  10. Type a name for the calendar in the window after “Display as.”
  11. Choose a color for the calendar in the “Color:” pull-down menu
  12. Click Save at the top of the page

Included in the Hebcal Jewish holiday downloads are options to select major holidays (Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Pesach, etc.), minor holidays (Purim, Chanukah, etc.), special Shabbatot, public fasts (Tish’a B’Av, etc.), Rosh Chodesh, and modern holidays (Yom HaAtzma’ut, etc.).

Palm Desktop 6.2 Jewish holidays download

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Follow these instructions to add a Hebcal Jewish holiday calendar 5-year feed to Palm Desktop 6.2.

Note that these instructions do not work for the older Palm Desktop 4.1.4. If you are using the older version, please instead use our Palm Desktop 4.1.4 for Windows instructions.

First, you’ll need to download a vCal (.vcs format) file from hebcal.com:

  1. Go to https://www.hebcal.com/hebcal
  2. Fill out the form with your preferences and click the Create Calendar button
  3. Click the Download… button
    Hebcal custom calendar download highlighted
  4. Select the Palm Desktop (Windows-only) option from the Download dialog box
  5. Click on the “Export vCal (.vcs format): hebcal_DATE_LOCATION.vcs” link
  6. When prompted, specify a convenient name and location for the hebcal_DATE_LOCATION.vcs file in the “Save As” dialogue box. We recommend saving the file on the Desktop

Next, import that file into Palm Desktop:

  1. Open Palm Desktop for Windows version 6.2
  2. Go to the Date Book view
  3. Select the File -> Import menu option
  4. Find the hebcal_DATE_LOCATION.vcs file and choose Open. This will import the chosen file
  5. HotSync data to your Palm handheld

Included in the Hebcal Jewish holiday downloads are options to select major holidays (Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Pesach, etc.), minor holidays (Purim, Chanukah, etc.), special Shabbatot, public fasts (Tish’a B’Av, etc.), Rosh Chodesh, and modern holidays (Yom HaAtzma’ut, etc.).

Displaying a Jewish Calendar on your website

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Note: as of 2020, we recommend newer FullCalendar approach. These instructions are here for historical purposes.

You may use the HTML tags below, courtesy of Kevin Ilsen’ JavaScript Event Calendar to put a calendar on your website. See an example of what the event calendar looks like.

If you just want holidays and no candle-lighting times, put these tags in the <head> section of the page:

Then, somewhere in the <body> section of the page where you want the calendar to appear, use these tags:

To add candle-lighting times for your city or town, you can change lines 1 and 2 in the first code block above as follows to include a zip code.

Be sure to change 90210 to your shul’s zip code. For example,

Note the following customizable parameters and their meanings:

  • nh=on – major holidays
  • nx=on – Rosh Chodesh
  • mf=on – minor fasts
  • ss=on – special Shabbatot
  • s=on– Parashat ha-Shavuah on Saturday
    • i=off – Diaspora sedra scheme
    • i=on – Israel sedra scheme
  • c=on – candle lighting times
  • zip=90210 – use zip code 90210 for candle lighting times
  • m=72 – Havdalah 72 minutes after sundown. Set to m=0 (zero) to disable Havdalah times
  • D=on – Hebrew date for dates with some event
  • d=on – Hebrew date for entire date range
  • o=on – Days of the Omer

Note mutually exclusive language parameter:

  • lg=s – Sephardic transliterations
  • lg=sh – Sephardic translit. + Hebrew
  • lg=a – Ashkenazis transliterations
  • lg=ah – Ashkenazis translit. + Hebrew
  • lg=h – Hebrew only