Is today a Jewish holiday?

The next Jewish holiday is Chanukah. The first candle is lit on Friday, December 4, 2026, and it lasts eight nights, through Saturday, December 12, 2026. Eight nights of lighting the menorah, for the rededication of the Temple and the small jar of oil that lasted eight days.

It is 5787 in the Hebrew calendar. The year began with Rosh Hashanah at sundown on Friday, September 11, 2026, and 5788 begins at sundown on Friday, October 1, 2027. Years are counted, by tradition, from the creation of the world.

Because the Jewish day runs from evening to evening. The Torah describes each day of Creation as "and there was evening and there was morning" (Bereishis 1:5), so the evening comes first. A holiday printed on a Tuesday in a wall calendar begins at sundown on Monday and ends at nightfall on Tuesday, when three stars are out.

On the Hebrew calendar they never move: Chanukah is always 25 Kislev and Pesach always 15 Nisan. The Hebrew months follow the moon, 29 or 30 days each, so twelve of them come to about 11 days less than a solar year. The Torah wants Pesach in the spring (Devarim 16:1), so a second month of Adar is added seven times every 19 years. Against the Gregorian calendar, each holiday comes about 11 days earlier for two or three years, then jumps about a month later in a leap year.

The Gregorian date changes at midnight; the Hebrew date changes at sundown, so one Hebrew date covers the evening of one Gregorian day and the daytime of the next. Hebrew months begin with the new moon, a year has 12 months or, in a leap year, 13, and years are counted from Creation rather than from the year 1.

The Yom Tov days, when work stops as it does on Shabbos: both days of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, the first two days of Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, the first two and last two days of Pesach, and both days of Shavuot. Outside Israel that is 13 days a year, and some of them fall on a weekend. Chanukah, Purim, Tu BiShvat and the minor fasts are ordinary working days for most people.

The same holidays, but some are a day shorter. Outside Israel a second festival day is kept for Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, Pesach and Shavuot, a custom from the time when the new month was announced in Jerusalem and the news took days to arrive. In Israel Pesach lasts seven days, Shavuot one, and Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah are the same day. This page follows the calendar outside Israel.

Rosh Chodesh ("head of the month") is the start of a Hebrew month, at the new moon. When the month before has 30 days, Rosh Chodesh is two days, the 30th and the 1st. It is a minor holiday: Hallel and an added prayer (Musaf) are said in shul, and many women keep a custom of resting from heavy work.