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Hebcal NewsiMenorah is a cute app for the iPhone that displays a menorah to light. Download it from the iTunes App Store.
Disclaimer: I'm plugging it because I know the guy who built the app, and because 10% of the proceeds from the $1.99 sale price go to the San Francisco JCC.
We added a new feature to the Hebcal Interactive Jewish Calendar: integration with Google Calendar.
Look for an image like this in the "Export calendar" section of your customized calendar results:
The Israeli government changed the dates of Yom HaZikaron and Yom Ha'atzmaut a couple of years ago. They added a new rule to prevent Yom HaZikaron from beginning on motzei Shabbat. In 2007, these holidays begin at sundown on 22 and 23 April, respectively (the 5th and 6th of Iyyar).
See Memorial Day and Independence Day Bill (amendment) 2004 for an English translation of the law that the Knesset passed.
The Wikipedia article on Yom Ha'atzmaut explains the recent change, and their dates agree with ours. Here the relevant excerpt:
Yom Ha'atzmaut falls on the 5th day of Iyar on the Hebrew calendar, the anniversary of the day in which Israel independence was proclaimed, when David ben Gurion publicly read the Proclamation of the establishment of the State of Israel. The corresponding Gregorian date was May 14, 1948.The festival is celebrated on the Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday closest to that date. This is to avoid having the festival either on Shabbat, the Jewish sabbath, or immediately before or after it. If Iyar 5 falls on Saturday, the festival is advanced to Thursday, Iyar 3, and if on Friday, then it is advanced to Thursday, Iyar 4. In 2004, the law was changed to provide that if Iyar 5 falls on Monday, the festival is postponed to Tuesday Iyar 6, so that Yom Hazikaron will not be immediately after the sabbath. (The rules of the Hebrew calendar are such that Iyar 5 does not fall on Sunday.)
If you're using hebcal for UNIX, be sure to upgrade to version 3.7 to see the updated rules for these two holidays.
Hebcal.com is now using the new DST rules for Indiana that take effect in April, 2006.
Hebcal.com is now running hebcal 3.5, which uses the new rules for Daylight Saving Time starting in the Spring of 2007. In particular:
Clocks will be set ahead one hour on the second Sunday of March instead of the current first Sunday of April. Clocks will be set back one hour on the first Sunday in November, rather than the last Sunday of October.
Hebcal.com and hebcal for UNIX do not yet take into consideration the change to Daylight Saving Time that is part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. We expect to implement this change in the next few months.
[Update 13 Feb 2006: hebcal.com is now running hebcal 3.5, which uses the new dates for DST starting in 2007]
I added a section to the FAQ entitled Do you offer a printable calendar?
The Hebcal Torah Reading pages now include an indication of special Maftir and Haftarah when they occur.
For example, since Parashat Toldot coincides with Shabbat Machar Chodesh on November 13, we read a special Haftarah.
![[Jewish Year 5765 Wall Calendar]](http://www.hebcal.com/i/0789311224.01.TZZZZZZZ.jpg)
I'd like to wish a sweet New Year to all Hebcal.com users. Rosh Hashana 5765 begins at sundown on September 15, 2004.
If you're looking to update your PDA or PIM program, Hebcal.com offers a personalized Jewish calendar for any year 0000-9999. You can export a Jewish holidays, candle lighting times, and Torah readings to Palm, Outlook, and iCal -- all for free.
If you're looking for a printed 2004-2005 calendar, I'd recommend the Jewish Year 5765 Wall Calendar.
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 08:48:38 +0400 From: Daniel.Lostotter@... To: webmaster@hebcal.com Subject: candle lighting time for Baghdad Sir, We are Jewish soldiers stationed in Baghdad, Iraq and were wondering if you would consider adding Baghdad to your list of cities for candle lighting times. It is a wondrous event to be Jews in Baghdad observing our faith and to be recognized on your website would be an honor. Thank you on behalf of the Victory Base Jewish Community. B'Shalom Daniel Lostotter
We've added two cities in Australia (Melbourne and Sydney) and Ottawa, Canada to the list of hebcal cities. We also added support for the AUNZ daylight saving time scheme which is the inverse of the European Union (their summer time begins the last Sunday in October and ends the last Sunday in March).
Israel ruled Feb. 1 to move the Day of Remembrance (Yom Hazikaron) and Israel Independence Day (Yom Ha'atzmaut) to Monday, April 26 and Tuesday, April 27 to avoid possible Shabbat violations in the country.
Following the Feb. 1 ruling, Rabbi Gedaliah Dov Schwartz of the Rabbinical Council of America issued a ruling saying American Jews should observe the holidays without adjusting to Israel's schedule. [IJN]
Hebcal.com is using the Israeli rules this year.
We have added links to OU Torah Insights, URJ Torat Hayim, and Torah.org commentaries on the parsha pages. For example:
http://www.hebcal.com/sedrot/vaera.html#drash
This fixes feature request #629967.
Thanks to Alan Ziv, an error in the Vayigash full kriyah aliyot list has been fixed.
The corrected list looks like this:
1: 44:18-30 (13 p'sukim)
2: 44:31-45:7 (11 p'sukim)
3: 45:8-18 (11 p'sukim)
4: 45:19-27 (9 p'sukim)
5: 45:28-46:27 (28 p'sukim)
6: 46:28-47:10 (17 p'sukim)
7: 47:11-27 (17 p'sukim)
maf: 47:25-27 (3 p'sukim)
Previously the website had incorrectly listed the third, fourth and fifth aliyot as:
3: 45:8-27 (20 p'sukim)
4: 45:28-46:7 (8 p'sukim)
5: 46:8-27 (20 p'sukim)
I'm working on adding a Holiday Torah Readings feature to the website.
You can see a beta version of the page here: Jewish Holidays.
For example, see the readings for Pesach.
This message is a little late, but I'd like to wish a sweet New Year to all of my hebcal.com users.
Or, perhaps I should extend an early Chag Sukkot Sameach!
Due to some confusion with Israeli vs. Diaspora sedra schemes, I have modified the user interface on the Interactive Calendar page to make the option easier to use. Instead of a checkbox, it's now displayed as a radio button (a choice between the two options).
You should select the appropriate option depending on where you live (Israeli sedra scheme for those living inside Israel, Diaspora for everyone else).
I have also fixed the 1-Click Shabbat service (both web and email versions) to automatically select Israeli sedra scheme for cities in Israel.
A couple of folks using iCal reported some problems with the Hebcal export option for iCal. Apparently the iCalendar file format is slightly incompatible with the vCalendar format used by Lotus Notes and some other apps.
To address this issue, the website now offers both .vcs (vCalendar) and .ics (iCalendar) files for download. The .ics files now have a string timezone identifier (such as TZID=US/Eastern). I think I've got these working for the US, but I don't yet have them working for international cities.
Per the suggestion of a user, I've added Hebrew translations to the Interactive Calendar for the following 3 optional features:
Days of the Omer
Show Hebrew date for entire date range
Show Hebrew date for dates with some event
Here's a sample of what it looks like:
2nd of Sivan, 5763 / ב׳ בְּסִיוָן תשס״ג
46th day of the Omer / מ״ו בְּעוֹמֶר
Got this email from Tellme today:
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 01:10:11 -0800 (PST) From: Tellme Studio <developer@tellme.com> To: michael@... Subject: Tellme Studio program change VoiceXML Developer, Tellme has made many investments in VoiceXML over the past four years. One of these investments was in the Extensions program, with the goal of making VoiceXML a more utilized public standard. Now with VoiceXML well on its way to standardization in the W3C and with hundreds of thousands of VoiceXML applications in production, it is clear that investment has paid off. It is time for us to retire the Extensions program and invest in other areas. As of Wednesday, April 9th we will no longer host Extensions on 1-800-555-TELL or http://studio.tellme.com. Developers can continue to build VoiceXML applications on Tellme Studio. Thank you for your individual contribution in making VoiceXML the most widely-used and successful voice standard in the world. The Tellme Development Team
Last week I fixed a bug in yahrzeit calculations in the hebcal website.
According to Calendrical Calculations by Edward M. Reingold and Nachum Dershowitz, the yarhzeit of someone who passed away in Adar of an ordinary year or Adar II of a leap year is also always in the last month of the year, be that Adar or Adar II.
The hebcal.com website previously displayed those anniversaries as occurring in Adar I. Hebcal for Unix 3.3beta10 also contains this fix.
We've added support for exporting Hebcal data to Lotus Notes R5 and Apple iCal.
Our vCalendar export also works in Palm Desktop 4.1 now, although the native DBA export is considered superior. Previously the Hebcal vCalendar export would cause Palm Desktop to crash, but this issue appears to be resolved now.
We've added next and previous links to the top of the individual Torah Readings pages. See Parashat Beshalach (this week's parsha) as an example. You'll see a link << Bo on the left and Yitro >> on the right.
These links have always been available at the bottom of the parsha pages, but now they're also visible at the top for people who don't like to scroll.
Also, the date of the reading for the current year highlighted to easily see what to year we're in if you're using the triennial cycle.
We've added the ability to get candle lighting times for your city as an RSS feed (for use in news aggegator programs like Radio UserLand , FeedReader, AmphetaDesk, or NetNewsWire.
Simply go to the 1-Click Shabbat Candle Lighting Times page, enter your zip code, and hit Submit. You'll notice this little orange XML button (example: ) in the upper right corner of the page.
Sometime before Pesach, I hope to change the Hebcal Torah Readings pages to correctly show special haftara/maftir when the parsha corresponds with a special day like Rosh Chodesh or Shabbat Shekalim.
Currently we're displaying this message:
NOTE: This site does not yet indicate special maftir or haftarah when they occur. Always check a luach or consult with your rabbi to determine if this Shabbat has a special maftir and/or a special haftarah.
But of course it would be much better if the website actually had the proper data. This would make hebcal.com one step closer to being a full luach.
There are a bunch of other feature requests and bugs to fix this year, too.
I got an email from Bill Kearney at Syndic8.com about a small error with the RSS feed from 1-Click Shabbat:
http://www.syndic8.com/feedinfo.php?FeedID=21674
Apparently I had a broken ISO date format; timezone formatting was using -8:00 instead of the correct -08:00 format. It's been fixed.
Gotta love that sprintf("%02d") stuff. :-)
Just in time for the (Gregorian) New Year, we've added a News section to the hebcal.com website. Here you'll find out about changes and improvements to the Hebcal Interactive Jewish Calendar and related web tools.
Kol Tuv!
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