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Google Calendar alternative instructions – Jewish holidays download

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If you’re having difficulty using the default importing Hebcal to Google Calendar instructions, here is an alternative technique to try that replaces the “subscribe” step with downloading and uploading.

Note that this technique requires a laptop/desktop computer (macOS, Windows, Linux), and generally will not work on a tablet or a phone.

Please note carefully step 10 and step 15 below. These steps have you create a new, separate calendar to upload your Hebcal events. A separate calendar allows you to assign a different color and notifications to events. If you skip these steps you may inadvertently merge Hebcal events with your own calendar events, and this will make it difficult to remove Hebcal events in the future should you choose to do so.

1. In your web browser, navigate to https://www.hebcal.com/hebcal if you’re downloading a holiday calendar, or https://www.hebcal.com/yahrzeit if you’re downloading a Yahrzeit + Anniversary calendar.

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

3. Click the Download… button

4. Select the Google Calendar option from the Download dialog box

5. Click on the “Download YYYY only” button to download the hebcal_YYYY.ics file to your desktop

6. If presented with a dialog box, be sure to chose the “Save File”, not “Open With …”
hebcal download save file vs open with dialog box

7. After the .ics file has downloaded, do not open it on your desktop.

  • Leave it sitting in your Downloads folder for now.
  • You will use it in step 13 below.

8. Return to your web browser and visit Google Calendar

9. Click the large + (Plus) button next to the “Other calendars” list on the left-hand side of the page

10. Select “Create new calendar”. A separate calendar allows you to assign a different color and notifications to events.

11. On the “Create new calendar page”, type the name “Hebcal” or “Jewish holidays” or whatever you’d like to call it, and click the blue Create calendar button

12. Back on the mail Google Calendar page, once again click the large + (Plus) button next to the “Other calendars” list on the left-hand side of the page

13. Select Import from the pop-up menu

14. Click on the grey Select file from your computer box, browse to your Downloads folder, choose the hebcal_YYYY.ics file that contains your events, then click Open

15. Change the calendar option from the default (e.g. “Events”) calendar to your new, separate “Jewish holidays” calendar that you created earlier in Step 10.

Please don’t skip this step! If you don’t select the correct “Jewish holidays” calendar, you will merge Hebcal events with your own calendar events. This will make it difficult to remove merged Hebcal events in the future should you choose to change your calendar settings.

Select “Jewish holidays” instead of “Events”

16. Confirm that the “Add to calendar” box says “Jewish holidays”, then click the import button

17. Wait a minute or two for your web browser to upload the .ics file to Google and for Google Calendar to finish processing the events.

18. Google will report that the calendar successfully imported some number of events, then click the blue OK button.

19. Congratulations! Enjoy your new calendar.

Google Calendar – unsubscribe Hebcal Jewish calendar

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To unsubscribe from a perpetual Hebcal calendar feed in Google Calendar, you can follow the steps in Google’s Delete or unsubscribe from a calendar help article. Here is a brief summary:

  1. On your computer, open Google Calendar.
  2. In the top right, click Settings  >  Settings.
  3. In the left column, select the calendar you want to remove.
  4. Click Remove calendar.
  5. Click Unsubscribe.
  6. Click Remove calendar.

Here is a more detailed version with screenshots:

1. Open a web browser on your computer and navigate to https://calendar.google.com/

2. On the left-hand side of the page, find the Hebcal calendar you wish to remove under the Other calendars section

3. Click the vertical ellipsis (three dots) next to the calendar to bring up the context menu

4. When the context menu pops up, click Settings

5. On the left-hand side, click Remove calendar

6. Click the Unsubscribe button

7. Click Remove calendar when prompted “Are you sure you want to remove Jewish Holidays ✡️? You’ll no longer have access to this calendar and its events.”

How does Hebcal determine anniversaries (birthdays, yahrzeits) in Adar, Cheshvan, or Kislev?

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Calendrical CalculationsHebcal uses the anniversary algorithm defined in Calendrical Calculations by Edward M. Reingold and Nachum Dershowitz, which accords with Ashkenazic practice.

Birthday

Reingold and Dershowitz write:

The birthday of someone born 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 birthday in an ordinary year of someone born during the first 29 days of Adar I in a leap year is on the corresponding day of Adar; in a leap year, the birthday occurs in Adar I, as expected. Someone born on the thirtieth day of Marcheshvan, Kislev, or Adar I has his birthday postponed until the first of the following month in years where that day does not occur. [Calendrical Calculations p. 111]

Yahrzeit

Yahrzeit refers to the anniversary, according to the Hebrew calendar, of the day of death of a loved one. Alternative spellings include yahrtzeit, yortsayt, yartzeit. Yahrzeit is written יאָרצײַט in Yiddish, which translates to “time of year”; the Hebrew equivalent is נַחֲלָה, transliterated as nachala (“legacy,” or “inheritance”).

The rules for a Yahrzeit are a little different than for a birthday:

The customary anniversary date of a death is more complicated and depends also on the character of the year in which the first anniversary occurs. There are several cases:

  • If the date of death is Marcheshvan 30, the anniversary in general depends on the first anniversary; if that first anniversary was not Marcheshvan 30, use the day before Kislev 1.
  • If the date of death is Kislev 30, the anniversary in general again depends on the first anniversary — if that was not Kislev 30, use the day before Tevet 1.
  • If the date of death is Adar II, the anniversary is the same day in the last month of the Hebrew year (Adar or Adar II).
  • If the date of death is Adar I 30, the anniversary in a Hebrew year that is not a leap year (in which Adar only has 29 days) is the last day in Shevat.
  • In all other cases, use the normal (that is, same month number) anniversary of the date of death.

[Calendrical Calculations p. 113]

Yahrzeit Example

For example, suppose Ploni ben Ploni passed away on 14 March 2001. That date corresponds to the 19th of Adar, 5761. Since 5761 was not a leap year, there was only one Adar that year (i.e. the date of death occurred in 12th month of the Hebrew year).

Suppose one wishes to observe the yahrzeit in Hebrew year 5765. Since 5765 is a leap year and none of the other rules applies, we use the same month number as the date of death. In a leap year the 12th month is Adar I, so the yahrzeit is observed on 19th of Adar I, 5765 (28 February 2005).

Variations

On page 114, Reingold and Dershowitz write:

There are minor variations in custom regarding the anniversary date in some of these cases. For example, Spanish and Portuguese Jews never observe the anniversary of a common-year date in Adar I.

There are undoubtedly many differing opinions regarding when to observe an Adar yahrzeit.

Here are two articles which offer differing opinions from our implementation:

For all matters of halacha, consult your local rabbi.

Sources

Reingold and Dershowitz cite two sources:

The Comprehensive Hebrew Calendar, Arthur Spier, 3rd edition, 1986, pp. 5-7

Talmudic Encyclopedia: A Digest of Halachic Literature and Jewish Law From The Tannaitic Period to the Present Time Alphabetically Arranged, vol I (1951), p. 93; vol. XXIII (1997), cols 153-154

Updates

9 Feb 2005: added errata at Nachum Dershowitz’s request.
9 Mar 2005: Added Ploni ben Ploni example.
9 Mar 2014: Added links to opinions by Rabbis Golinkin and Schachter
28 Dec 2016: Corrected misspellings
3 Feb 2021: Added “Sources” section

What is the differerence between the Diaspora and Israeli sedra schemes?

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Jews living in the Diaspora (outside of modern Israel) typically observe two days of chag on holidays that are Yom Tov (holidays where work is forbidden, called yontiff in Yiddish). In Israel, only one day of chag is observed.

Sometimes, depending on the calendar, the Diaspora observes the second day of chag on Shabbat, and the holiday Torah reading pushes the regular weekly Torah reading back a week. Since Israel has only one day of chag, they read the regular weekly Torah reading. Thus, the Parashat ha-Shavuah ends up being different.

When using the “Weekly Torah portion on Saturdays” option on the custom calendar, select the appropriate option depending on where you live (Israeli holiday schedule for those living inside Israel, Diaspora for everyone else).