The Jewish holiday calendar follows a lunisolar year, so its holidays land on different Gregorian dates each year but always in the same season. The year opens in the fall with Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, moves through the winter lights of Hanukkah, the spring liberation of Passover, and the summer mourning of Tisha B'Av, all anchored by the weekly rhythm of Shabbat. This guide walks the entire calendar in order, holiday by holiday, with what each one is, when it falls, and how Jewish Americans celebrate it, so you can find any holiday and understand it in a minute.
How the Jewish Calendar Works
The Hebrew calendar is lunisolar: months follow the moon, while an extra month is added in seven years out of every nineteen to keep the holidays aligned with the seasons. That is why a holiday can fall in early September one year and early October the next, yet always stays in its season. Each Jewish day begins at sundown the evening before, so every holiday starts the night before the date you see on a calendar. The year has twelve months, beginning with Tishrei in the fall: Tishrei, Cheshvan, Kislev, Tevet, Shevat, Adar, Nisan, Iyar, Sivan, Tammuz, Av, and Elul. For live dates and conversions, our Hebrew calendar and holiday calendar tools do the math for you.
At a Glance: The Jewish Year in Order
- Shabbat: every week, Friday sundown to Saturday night. The weekly day of rest.
- Rosh Hashanah: 1 to 2 Tishrei, September or October. The Jewish New Year.
- Yom Kippur: 10 Tishrei, September or October. The Day of Atonement.
- Sukkot: 15 to 21 Tishrei, fall. The harvest festival of booths.
- Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah: 22 to 23 Tishrei, fall. Concluding the festival and the Torah cycle.
- Hanukkah: 25 Kislev for eight nights, November or December. The Festival of Lights.
- Tu BiShvat: 15 Shevat, winter. The New Year of the Trees.
- Purim: 14 Adar, February or March. The joyous festival of the Book of Esther.
- Passover: 15 to 22 Nisan, March or April. The festival of liberation from Egypt.
- Yom HaShoah: 27 Nisan, spring. Holocaust Remembrance Day.
- Yom HaAtzmaut: 5 Iyar, spring. Israeli Independence Day.
- Lag BaOmer: 18 Iyar, spring. A festive break in the Omer count.
- Shavuot: 6 Sivan, late spring. Marking the giving of the Torah.
- Tisha B'Av: 9 Av, summer. A day of mourning and fasting.
The Weekly Anchor: Shabbat
Before any yearly holiday, there is the weekly one. Shabbat, the Sabbath, runs from Friday at sundown to nightfall on Saturday, a full day of rest that recurs fifty-two times a year. Families welcome it by lighting candles, blessing wine and challah, and sharing a meal, then set aside work for a day of rest, study, and time together. It is the most frequently observed holiday in Judaism and the steady heartbeat under everything else. Our guide to the Shabbat dinner as the original weekly reset and the Shabbat hub go deeper on the customs and the candle-lighting times.
The Season of Preparation: Elul
Although the year formally begins in Tishrei, the mood shifts a month earlier, in Elul, the final month of the calendar in late summer. Many communities sound the shofar each weekday morning through Elul and, in the days before Rosh Hashanah, recite selichot, penitential prayers that set a reflective tone. Elul is traditionally a time for taking stock, mending relationships, and preparing the heart for the reckoning of the High Holidays. It is the on-ramp to the whole cycle, and it explains why the New Year arrives feeling less like a party and more like a solemn accounting.
Fall: The High Holidays and the Season of Joy
The Jewish year opens with its most solemn and most celebrated stretch, all falling in the month of Tishrei in September or October. In tradition these weeks hold the balance of the entire calendar, moving from judgment to atonement to unguarded joy in the span of three weeks.
Rosh Hashanah (1 to 2 Tishrei)
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins the year and the ten-day period known as the Days of Awe. It is marked by the blowing of the shofar, a ram's horn, and by sweet foods that express hope for a good year, especially apples dipped in honey and round challah. Families gather, attend synagogue, and many perform tashlich, symbolically casting away the past year's shortcomings at a body of flowing water. For the fuller picture, see our friendly guide to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and the deeper dive into Rosh Hashanah symbolic foods.
Yom Kippur (10 Tishrei)
Ten days after Rosh Hashanah comes Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement and the holiest day of the Jewish year. It is a roughly twenty-five-hour fast devoted to prayer, reflection, and repentance, when Jews seek to repair wrongs and reconcile with others and with God. The day ends with the Neilah service and a final long blast of the shofar, followed by a break-fast meal with family and friends. If you are observing for the first time, our newcomer's guide to the High Holidays walks you through what to expect.
Sukkot (15 to 21 Tishrei)
Just five days after the solemnity of Yom Kippur, the mood turns to joy. Sukkot is the seven-day fall harvest festival, traditionally called the season of our rejoicing. Families build a sukkah, a temporary hut with a roof of branches, and eat and sometimes sleep in it, recalling the shelters the Israelites used in the wilderness. A second ritual involves waving the four species, including the lulav and etrog. It is the holiday most American Jews tend to overlook, which is exactly why we wrote about Sukkot, the holiday everyone forgets.
Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah (22 to 23 Tishrei)
Sukkot flows directly into two linked celebrations. Shemini Atzeret is a distinct festival day that concludes the season, and Simchat Torah, which follows it, marks the completion and immediate restart of the annual cycle of Torah readings. Simchat Torah is joyous and physical, with congregations dancing while carrying the Torah scrolls, one of the most exuberant moments on the whole calendar.
Winter: Lights and Trees
Hanukkah (25 Kislev, eight nights)
Falling in November or December, Hanukkah is the eight-night Festival of Lights, commemorating the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem after the Maccabees' victory and the miracle of a single day's oil that burned for eight. Families light the menorah one additional candle each night, eat fried foods like latkes and sufganiyot that recall the oil, spin the dreidel, and give gifts. Though minor in the traditional religious hierarchy, Hanukkah has become one of the most visible Jewish holidays in America because of its December timing, a dynamic we unpack in our comparison of Hanukkah and Christmas. See also our Hanukkah food guide for the fried classics.
Tu BiShvat (15 Shevat)
In the depth of winter comes Tu BiShvat, the New Year of the Trees, which marks the point when sap begins to rise in the land of Israel. Once a technical date for tithing fruit, it has grown into a celebration of nature and environmental awareness, often observed with a special seder of fruits and nuts and with tree planting.
Spring: Deliverance, Remembrance, and Revelation
Purim (14 Adar)
As winter turns to spring, in February or March, Purim arrives as pure celebration. It recounts the Book of Esther, in which Queen Esther and her cousin Mordecai foil the plot of the villain Haman to destroy the Jews of ancient Persia. The holiday centers on four traditional practices: hearing the Megillah, the scroll of Esther, read aloud, often with noisemakers to drown out Haman's name; sending mishloach manot, gifts of food, to friends; giving charity to the poor; and a festive daytime meal. Add costumes, carnivals, and triangular pastries called hamantaschen, and Purim becomes the most playful day on the calendar.
Passover (15 to 22 Nisan)
Passover, or Pesach, is one of the most widely observed holidays among Jewish Americans, falling in March or April. Over eight days, or seven in Israel and among many Reform Jews, families retell the Exodus from slavery in Egypt. The festival opens with the seder, a ritual meal built around the Haggadah, the seder plate, matzah, and four cups of wine, during which the story is read aloud in a set order. Households remove chametz, leavened food, from the home for the week and eat matzah in its place. The seder is full of memorable customs: the youngest asks the Four Questions, a piece of matzah called the afikoman is hidden for children to find, and a cup of wine is set out for the prophet Elijah. It is a night built to keep children awake and curious, and for many families it is the most anticipated meal of the year. Our Passover traditions explained and the seder plate item by item guide cover it in full.
Counting the Omer, Yom HaShoah, and Yom HaAtzmaut
From the second night of Passover, Jews count the Omer, forty-nine days that lead to Shavuot. Within that period fall several modern observances added in the twentieth century: Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, on 27 Nisan; and, a week later, Yom HaAtzmaut, Israeli Independence Day, on 5 Iyar, preceded by the solemn Yom HaZikaron. Lag BaOmer, on 18 Iyar, is a festive pause in the Omer's period of semi-mourning, often marked with bonfires, weddings, and outdoor celebrations.
Shavuot (6 Sivan)
The Omer count concludes at Shavuot, in late spring, which commemorates the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai and also marks the wheat harvest in ancient Israel. It is traditionally observed by staying up through the night to study Torah in a gathering called Tikkun Leil Shavuot, decorating homes and synagogues with flowers and greenery, reading the Book of Ruth, and eating dairy foods such as blintzes and cheesecake. Along with Passover and Sukkot, Shavuot is one of the three pilgrimage festivals that in ancient times drew Jews to the Temple in Jerusalem. The full spring arc, from Passover through Shavuot, is mapped in our Jewish spring holiday season guide.
Summer: The Day of Mourning
Tisha B'Av (9 Av)
The calendar's most sorrowful day falls in mid to late summer. Tisha B'Av is a full fast day mourning the destruction of both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, along with other catastrophes in Jewish history said to have struck on the same date. It is observed with fasting, the reading of the Book of Lamentations, and mourning customs, closing the year's cycle of remembrance before the calendar turns again toward the High Holidays of the fall.
Minor Fasts and Other Observances
Beyond the major festivals, the calendar includes several minor fast days that mark historical tragedies, chiefly connected to the siege and destruction of Jerusalem. These include the Fast of Gedaliah just after Rosh Hashanah, the Tenth of Tevet in winter, the Fast of Esther just before Purim, and the Seventeenth of Tammuz in summer, which opens a three-week period of mourning that culminates in Tisha B'Av. These are dawn-to-dusk fasts rather than the full twenty-five-hour fasts of Yom Kippur and Tisha B'Av, and observance varies widely across communities. Rosh Chodesh, the start of each new month, is also marked with special prayers, a quiet monthly rhythm layered beneath the yearly one.
Finding Your Way Through the Year
Once you see it laid out in order, the Jewish calendar has a clear rhythm: a solemn, reflective fall, a bright winter, a spring of freedom and remembrance, a somber high summer, and the weekly return of Shabbat holding it all together. For the exact dates each year, lean on our Hebrew calendar and calendar tools, and explore any single holiday in depth on the holidays hub. You can also cross-check the exact dates each year against Hebcal's holiday calendar and read fuller overviews of each festival at Reform Judaism. Whether you keep every holiday or are meeting the calendar for the first time, there is a full year of meaning here waiting to be explored across our culture pages.