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Yom HaShoah errata: begins on Sun, 7 April 2013 at sundown

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We’ve fixed an error with the observance of Yom HaShoah occurring adjacent to Shabbat. This year Yom HaShoah begins on Sunday, 7 April 2013 at sundown.

Previously Hebcal always used the date of the 27th of Nisan.

When the actual date of Yom Hashoah falls on a Friday, the state of Israel observes Yom Hashoah on the preceding Thursday. When it falls on a Sunday, Yom Hashoah is observed on the following Monday.

Joomla JEvents Jewish holidays

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Follow these instructions to add a Hebcal Jewish holiday calendar 5-year feed to Joomla CMS via the JEvents extension. These instructions are courtesy of Yaniv Feldman from Fancy Design LLC. Thanks!

CONFIGURING

  • Under Components choose JEvents
  • From the JEvents control panel choose “Manage Categories”
  • Click the “New” (+plus icon) from the top toolbar to create a new category
  • Name your category, something like “Shabbat Times” (without quotes)
  • Set your own parameters (optional) – recommended: set “Check for overlapping events?” to “No” because Shabbat times shouldn’t be effected by other events.
  • Click “Save and Close” from the top toolbar.
  • From the JEvents control panel choose “Manage Calendars”
  • Click the “New” (+plus icon) from the top toolbar to create a new calendar
  • Choose a category under which you need this calendar created – ideally the one you’ve just create.
  • From the “From file” tab (bottom) choose the file you created on the preparation section of this document.
  • Wait patiently for the entire calendar to upload – this stage ends when you’re back in the JEvents control panel with a message under the JEvents logo which reads: “1457 iCal events processed ICS_FILE_IMPORTED” (The number may vary, depending on the amount of records added)

PREPARATIONS

  • To create a Shabbat Times calendar, which is based on your preferences, visit this URL:https://www.hebcal.com/hebcal
  • After tweaking the settings to your need, click on “Create Calendar”.
  • From the top, click on “Download…”
  • From the popup window choose “Google Calendar” and then “Download”
  • Save the file where you can find it – you may rename it, but keep the file extension “.ics”

PRESENTING

  • To create a module for presentation, choose “Extensions > Module Manager” from the top menu
  • Click the “New” (+plus icon) from the top toolbar to create a new module
  • Choose “Latest JEvents” from the list of Module Types.
  • Name your module – I named it “Shabbat Times” (without quotes)
  • Select a position, if you need it anywhere on your website (AcyMailing doesn’t need any position so for that purpose, leave it blank)
  • From the “Basic Options”, under “Select Categories” choose “Shabbat Times” or whatever you named the JEvents category..
  • Leave all other settings “as is”. Recommended – Control the number of events shown under “Display Mode” – I choose option #0 (current/following week events) for the sake of the weekly newsletter.
  • Click Save & Close.

 

Chanukah and Thanksgiving in 2013

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We enjoyed reading Jonathan Mizrahi’s Hanukkah and Thanksgiving: A once in eternity overlap:

Next year features an anomaly for American Jews – The first day of Hanukkah coincides with Thanksgiving, on 11/28/2013 (meaning the first night of Hanukkah is actually the night before Thanksgiving). I was curious how often this happens. It turns out that it has never happened before…and it will never happen again.
(Correction: it happened once before, in 1888: see Addendum.)
Tip of the hat to Adam Trachtenberg for passing along the article.