Tradition, Not Location

I have attempted to rectify the confusion that apparently exists as to why some holidays are observed for an extra day and some are not. Contrary to popular belief, the historic reasons for this practice are *not* known. There are several theories. The theory that Jews outside of Israel could not be sure they were celebrating the holiday according to the correct day has been the most popular one for the last 20 to 30 years, but it is by no means a proven or provable theory. (On the contrary, it is easier to disprove that theory than to prove it; because even in ancient times, human beings - especially in the Middle East - knew enough about astronomy and the phases of the moon to know whether or not the date of a holiday was correct.)

There is also the problem that people from religious traditions that observe an 8-day Passover festival outside of Israel *also* observe that same 8-day Passover festival even when they are *in* Israel (most of them even if they have made aliya and live there permanently). Likewise, Jews from Israel who are in America, Europe, or otherwise away from Israel during Pesach only observe *7* days, not 8; because it is not part of their tradition to observe 8 days. Neither is it part of Reform, Reconstructionist and other "liberal" traditions to observe the Passover festival for 8 days - though some *do*; and there are some Modern Orthodox who do *not*.

So the salient point is this: Whatever the historic reason for some holidays getting an extra day attached to them, whether you observe that extra day is a matter of your tradition not a question of location within or without Israel. 50.115.74.132 (talk) 16:23, 16 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Vfd

On 21 Mar 2005, this article was nominated for deletion. The result was keep. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jewish holidays 2000-2050 for a record of the discussion. —Korath (Talk) 00:22, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

Random Gibberish

This page was vandalized; random gibberish (e.g. "jghghgjjghjghjg") was added; I'm taking out what I can and that I know what to replace it with, but there is some stuff that still needs to be fixed. 129.44.216.105 20:16, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Layout

Somebody needs to address the layout of this article. In my opinion, the disambiguation of names section should preceed the contents section. The latter should be reformatted so that the translations (of Hebrew dates) into years of the Gregorian calendar each fit on a single line. If possible to implement, a navigation box would be useful.--Ottre (talk) 07:18, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The page should be laid out in tables to make it more useful. --Redaktor (talk) 14:41, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Missing info

A number of important minor fast dates are missing, eg 17th Tammuz, 10th Tevet etc. --Dweller (talk) 15:48, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Forseeable future"

Article states it is possible to find the date of a given holiday for any date in the forseeable future. How much of the future is forseeable? Why is it even needed to be mentioned? We don't say that the date of Labor Day in America (which is not fixed, but based on set rules) can be found for any time in the forseeable future. The dates of Jewish holidays are based on set rules and can be extended indefinitely until a recognized authority changes the rules governing the Jewish calendar. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.21.237.46 (talk) 21:01, 28 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Appropriate for Wikipedia?

I'm not really sure whether an almanac is appropriate for Wikipedia. WP:NOTALMANAC is a redlink, though, so I guess I'll refrain from AfDing for now. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:20, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ridiculous

Why in the world is this article cluttered with a 'table' that is nearly useless? I'm talking about the clutter of Jewish Years to Gregorian Years at the beginning of the article. If, for example, I wanted to know what the (Gregorian) Common Era dates of year 5777 were, could I find it here? No. Checking the table, I find that 5777 corresponds to 2016-2017. Does that mean it is 2 years (i.e. 730 days) long? For all I know the year 5777 started on Dec.30, 2016 and ended Jan. 2, 2017 (4 days long) Sure, that's silly, but so is a listing so vague as to be useless. Conversely, if I wanted to know what Jewish calendar year September 21, 2016 was in, could I find it here? Nope. That portion of this 'almanac' should be Deleted; unless someone wants to make the effort to fix it to be useful. I note that the listing of holidays by Jewish year includes Rosh HaShanah, which if Wikipedia is to be believed is 163 days after Passover (always, I presume (under the current system)). This allows for the not too burdensome calculation of when Nisan 1 occurs (in the Gregorian Calendar) and Passover on Nisan 15 as well. WHY isn't Passover included here??? And since I'm solidly into critical mode, many of the holidays have duration of MORE THAN ONE DAY, yet only one day is listed here. (Yes, I understand that various groups don't agree on some holy days length/duration - that's notable in itself, but probably asking too much given where the article is now.(too bad footnotes aren't a thing, huh?)). I am not at all familiar with the Israeli calendar, so perhaps it is more definite? If not, then I suggest that a very small paragraph be included up front which mentions that the calendar has "leap months" and is not 365 (or 366 in leap years) days long, which makes it impossible to have a simple conversion factor between Gregorian dates and Jewish dates (actually, if I understand it correctly, the problem only occurs around the Jewish New Year, the 10 other months can be straightforwardly assigned a factor to add or subtract to obtain the Jewish or Gregorian year. (Actually, if you think about it, listing Rosh HaShanah's date and whether there's any extra 'padding' in that year would be a useful table to have here, imho). The Wikipedia article Hebrew calendar includes this paragraph:"The Hebrew lunar year is about 11 days shorter than the solar year and uses the 19-year Metonic cycle to bring it into line with the solar year, with the addition of an intercalary month every two or three years..." which seems a useful addition to this article.174.130.71.156 (talk) 05:30, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]