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First day of Chanukah on Christmas

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As many have noted, the first day of Chanukah coincided with Christmas this year (December 25, 2016).

This happens approximately three times each century. Prior to this year, the most recent occurrence was in 1978, and the next time this will happen will be in 2027.

For completeness, here are the co-occurrences of the first day of Chanukah and Christmas during the past 400 years:

And here are the next two hundred years:

Users of hebcal for UNIX can verify this for themselves using a command like the following:

./hebcal --years 600 1617 | \
  grep 'Chanukah: 1 Candle' | \
  grep '^12/24' | \
  cut -c 7-10

Yom HaAliyah / יום העלייה

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We’ve added a new modern holiday, Yom HaAliyah (יום העלייה). Yom HaAliyah recognizes Aliyah, immigration to the Jewish State of Israel.

More info from Wikipedia:

Yom HaAliyah (Aliyah Day) (Hebrew: יום העליה) is an Israeli national holiday celebrated annually on the seventh of the Hebrew month of Cheshvan, to commemorate the historic events which happened on the tenth of the Hebrew month of Nisan (Hebrew: י’ ניסן). The holiday was established to acknowledge Aliyah, immigration to the Jewish state, as a core value of the State of Israel, and honor the ongoing contributions of Olim to Israeli society.

The holiday was first observed on 7 Cheshvan 5777 (November 8, 2016).

Microsoft Outlook – delete Hebcal Jewish holidays from Office 365

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Here are a few options for how to remove Hebcal events from your Outlook 365 calendar on Windows:

  • To remove an Internet Calendar Subscription from side-by-side view, clear the check mark for the calendar in the Navigation Pane.
  • To remove the Internet Calendar Subscription from the Navigation Pane, right-click the calendar name, and then click Delete calendar name.
  • Internet Calendar Subscriptions can be added, changed, or removed from the Account Settings dialog box. On the Tools menu, click Account Settings, and then click the Internet Calendars tab.

These instructions also apply to Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010, or Outlook 2013 on Windows.

Jewish holiday calendars in Hebrew

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It’s easy to create a calendar in Hebrew instead of transliterations.

First, go to our custom calendar page at https://www.hebcal.com/hebcal

Next, change the Event titles option from the default (Sephardic transliterations) to Hebrew – עברית.

Then, set up the rest of your options as you desire, and click Create Calendar.

Hebcal Event titles in Hebrew

After that, you’ll see the calendar of Jewish holidays, and you will presented with an option to print, download, or subscribe to the calendar.

Blackbaud Jewish holiday calendar

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Follow these instructions to add a Hebcal Jewish holiday calendar feed to Blackbaud for your school.

  1. Open a web browser and navigate 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
    Jewish_Calendar_2017_Providence___Hebcal_Jewish_Calendar 478px
  4. Select the iCalendar option from the Download dialog box
    iCalendar Download dialog
  5. Open your Blackbaud management website.
  6. Go to Core -> Settings -> Manage Calendar – > Add Calendar -> Filters ->Add Filter -> New Category
  7. In the Add New Category modal, a user can toggle the Use iCal URL in order to create an Event Category based on an iCal Feed. Schools will need to type or paste the iCal URL into the text field.
  8. For more info, see Managing the Calendar from Blackbaud Support.