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Correction: Ta’anit Bechorot falls on Friday April 6, 2012

Ta’anit Bechorot (Fast of the Firstborn) falls on Friday, April 6, 2012. An earlier version of the calendar we publish incorrectly had this minor fast on Thursday.

When this fast day falls on Friday, we do in fact observe the fast on Friday, even though Shabbat follows immediately.

It is only in years when the date of the fast falls on Shabbat that the fast is moved. In this case, Ta’anit Bechorot is moved back to Thursday, because it is preferable not to fast immediately before Shabbat.

Source: Mishnah Berurah: the classic commentary to Shulchan Aruch Orach Chayim, comprising the laws of daily Jewish conduct, Volume V (B), Pesach. §470: “That the first-born fast on Erev Pesach.”

Hebcal.com HTML/ScrInject.B.Gen virus removed

Hebcal.com got hit with a script injection virus this week but everything is fine now.

We had a stale copy of the WordPress content management system for our Help and News pages, so some malicious person/machine exploited a loophole. We have upgraded to the latest copy and have removed all traces of the virus from our website.

Our sincere apologies for any inconvenience we may have caused.

Hebrew Date Converter REST API

We offer a simple API for converting between Gregorian and Hebrew dates. Two output formats are supported: JSON and XML.

Note that this is a web API with the same functionality as the HDate API provided by the JavaScript @hebcal/core package. If you’re building a JavaScript application, consider using the native JS library instead of web APIs for a faster user experience.

1. Gregorian to Hebrew – single

To convert from Gregorian to Hebrew date use this URL format:

https://www.hebcal.com/converter?cfg=json&date=2011-06-02&g2h=1&strict=1
  • cfg=json – output format is JSON (cfg=json) or XML (cfg=xml)
  • g2h=1 – Convert from Gregorian to Hebrew date
  • date=2011-06-02 – Gregorian date in YYYY-MM-DD format
  • gs=on – After sunset on Gregorian date
  • strict=1 – strict mode will return a 400 Bad Request error for invalid dates

As an alternative to specifying date=YYYY-MM-DD, clients may send gy=YYYY&gm=MM&gd=DD as follows:

  • gy=2011 – Gregorian year
  • gm=6 – Gregorian month (1=January, 12=December). Leading 0 is optional
  • gd=2 – Gregorian day of month. Leading 0 is optional

2. Gregorian to Hebrew – range of dates

To convert a batch of Gregorian dates to Hebrew dates, use this URL format:

https://www.hebcal.com/converter?cfg=json&start=2021-12-29&end=2022-01-04&g2h=1
  • cfg=json – output format is JSON (cfg=json)
  • g2h=1 – Convert from Gregorian to Hebrew date
  • start=2021-12-29 – Gregorian start date in YYYY-MM-DD format
  • end=2022-01-04 – Gregorian end date in YYYY-MM-DD format

Results will be truncated to 180 days if the end date is more than 180 days after the start date.

3. Hebrew to Gregorian – single date

To convert from Hebrew to Gregorian use this URL format:

https://www.hebcal.com/converter?cfg=json&hy=5749&hm=Kislev&hd=25&h2g=1&strict=1
  • cfg=json – output format is JSON (cfg=json) or XML (cfg=xml)
  • h2g=1 – Convert from Hebrew to Gregorian date
  • hd=25 – Hebrew day of month
  • hy=5749 – Hebrew year
  • hm=Kislev – Hebrew month

Month names may be specified in Hebrew or transliterated as follows:

Month nameHebrewCommon aliases
Nisanניסן
IyyarאיירIyar
Sivanסיון
TamuzתמוזTammuz
Avאב
Elulאלול
Tishreiתשרי
Cheshvanחשון
Kislevכסלו
TevetטבתTeves
ShvatשבטSh'vat
Adarאדר
Adar1אדר א׳Adar 1Adar I
Adar2אדר ב׳Adar 2, Adar II

In leap years, specifying Adar is the same as specifying Adar2. In non-leap years, all three of Adar, Adar1, and Adar2 are considered equivalent and will be interpreted as Adar.

The API is somewhat lenient in what it accepts for Hebrew month names. You can specify sh%27vat or Sh%27vat or Shvat. It will always consistently generate Sh'vat in the response. Generally the API will accept month names with as few as 2 characters, as this is sufficient to disambiguate them from each other,.

Similarly, the API accepts all of Adar1Adar 1Adar IAdar2Adar 2Adar II. Because the capital-i and the lowercase-L look the same in some fonts, we recommend using the numerals 1 and 2 in the API usage. In the generated responses, Hebcal always uses Adar I and Adar II for consistency and compatibility as we’ve done for over 20 years.

4. Hebrew to Gregorian – range of dates

To convert a batch of Hebrew dates to Gregorian dates, use the same URL format as the “Hebrew to Gregorian – single date” above, and add an additional ndays parameter.

https://www.hebcal.com/converter?cfg=json&hy=5749&hm=Kislev&hd=25&h2g=1&ndays=90&strict=1
  • ndays=90 – calculate range of of days (between 2 and 180 inclusive)

5. Other API notes

By default, event titles use a Sephardic transliteration. Append &lg=LANG to the URL to render the events titles using an alternate event language.

Note also an optional callback parameter:

  • callback=function – wraps the JSON output text in parentheses and a function name of your choosing. Callback function names may only use upper and lowercase alphabetic characters (A-Z, a-z), numbers (0-9), the period (.), the underscore (_).

As with all Hebcal.com REST APIs:

  • Both HTTP and HTTPS (HTTP/2) are supported. Although most of the Web has moved to HTTPS, if you wish to reduce CPU overhead on your client you may continue to use plain (port 80) HTTP for API requests
  • We encourage HTTP caching proxies. Proper Cache-Control and Expires are generated in the response
  • We support both gzip and br (brotli) compression; set the appropriate Accept-Encoding header in your request to enable
  • We support HTTP Keep-Alive for multiple requests

6. Sample output in JSON and XML

{
  "gy": 2011,
  "gm": 6,
  "gd": 2,
  "afterSunset": false,
  "hy": 5771,
  "hm": "Iyyar",
  "hd": 29,
  "hebrew": "כ״ט בְּאִיָיר תשע״א",
  "heDateParts": {
    "y": "תשע״א",
    "m": "אייר",
    "d": "כ״ט"
  },
  "events": [
    "Parashat Nasso",
    "44th day of the Omer"
  ]
}
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<hebcal>
  <gregorian year="2011" month="6" day="2" />
  <hebrew year="5771" month="Iyyar" day="29" str="כ״ט בְּאִיָיר תשע״א" />
</hebcal>

7. Sample output (batch API)

{
  "start": "2021-12-29",
  "end": "2022-01-04",
  "locale": "en",
  "hdates": {
    "2021-12-29": {
      "hy": 5782,
      "hm": "Tevet",
      "hd": 25,
      "hebrew": "כ״ה בְּטֵבֵת תשפ״ב",
      "heDateParts": {
        "y": "תשפ״ב",
        "m": "טבת",
        "d": "כ״ה"
      },
      "events": [
        "Parashat Vaera"
      ]
    },
    "2021-12-30": {
      "hy": 5782,
      "hm": "Tevet",
      "hd": 26,
      "hebrew": "כ״ו בְּטֵבֵת תשפ״ב",
      "heDateParts": {
        "y": "תשפ״ב",
        "m": "טבת",
        "d": "כ״ו"
      },
      "events": [
        "Parashat Vaera"
      ]
    },
    "2021-12-31": {
      "hy": 5782,
      "hm": "Tevet",
      "hd": 27,
      "hebrew": "כ״ז בְּטֵבֵת תשפ״ב",
      "heDateParts": {
        "y": "תשפ״ב",
        "m": "טבת",
        "d": "כ״ז"
      },
      "events": [
        "Parashat Vaera"
      ]
    },
    "2022-01-01": {
      "hy": 5782,
      "hm": "Tevet",
      "hd": 28,
      "hebrew": "כ״ח בְּטֵבֵת תשפ״ב",
      "heDateParts": {
        "y": "תשפ״ב",
        "m": "טבת",
        "d": "כ״ח"
      },
      "events": [
        "Shabbat Mevarchim Chodesh Sh'vat",
        "Parashat Vaera"
      ]
    },
    "2022-01-02": {
      "hy": 5782,
      "hm": "Tevet",
      "hd": 29,
      "hebrew": "כ״ט בְּטֵבֵת תשפ״ב",
      "heDateParts": {
        "y": "תשפ״ב",
        "m": "טבת",
        "d": "כ״ט"
      },
      "events": [
        "Parashat Bo"
      ]
    },
    "2022-01-03": {
      "hy": 5782,
      "hm": "Sh'vat",
      "hd": 1,
      "hebrew": "א׳ בִּשְׁבָט תשפ״ב",
      "heDateParts": {
        "y": "תשפ״ב",
        "m": "שבט",
        "d": "א׳"
      },
      "events": [
        "Rosh Chodesh Sh'vat",
        "Parashat Bo"
      ]
    },
    "2022-01-04": {
      "hy": 5782,
      "hm": "Sh'vat",
      "hd": 2,
      "hebrew": "ב׳ בִּשְׁבָט תשפ״ב",
      "heDateParts": {
        "y": "תשפ״ב",
        "m": "שבט",
        "d": "ב׳"
      },
      "events": [
        "Parashat Bo"
      ]
    }
  }
}

iCalendar/ICS Jewish holidays download

Many calendar desktop, mobile or web apps support the iCalendar (.ICS file extension) format. iCalendar is an open standard for exchanging calendar information. It is also known as RFC 5545.

To get an iCalendar feed URL for your calendar app, follow these instructions:

1. Open a web browser on your device.

2. Fill out the form with your preferences and click the Create Calendar button

3. Click the Download… button

4. Select the iCalendar option from the download dialog box

5. Copy the entire https://download.hebcal.com URL to your clipboard

6. When your iCalendar-enabled application asks for a URL to subscribe to, paste the https://download.hebcal.com URL that you previously copied to the clipboard

Hebcal iCalendar feed URLs support https and http

Calendar feed URLs for download.hebcal.com support both TLS (https) and unencrypted (http) protocols.

If your calendar program cannot use secure iCalendar feed URLs, replace the https prefix with http.

Instructions for major calendar apps

See below for app-specific instructions for many popular calendar apps in that support iCalendar feeds: