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Jewish Holidays


Celebrate and observe the Jewish holidays: Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Simchat Torah, Hanukkah, Tu Beshevat and more.

 Another biblical name for Shavuot is Yom HaBikkurim (Day of the First Fruits), referring to the joyful pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where the Israelites offered up baskets of their first ripe fruits and bread baked from the newly harvested wheat.

The many faces of Shavuot harvest, revelation, and tradition

 ‘BOAZ AND RUTH’ by Rembrandt, circa 1637-40. Through acts of kindness, dedication, and determination, Ruth becomes the worthy great-grandmother of King David.

Shavuot 2025: Diving into the Book of Ruth, a reminder tradition can grow

By BENJAMIN J. SEGAL
 PRESIDENT ISAAC HERZOG attends a ‘Book of Esther’ reading wearing a protective mask, at the Ahavat Tzion synagogue in Beit Shemesh in 2022. ‘God is hiding His face, and we are experiencing a world in which it seems that God is absent,’ says the writer.

Shavuot 2025: Why do we group Jewish holidays together?

 SHAVUOT, ONE of the three pilgrimage festivals, marked the wheat harvest in biblical Israel. It concludes the seven-week period beginning at Passover

Shavuot in 1948: Harvesting the first fruits of Israeli statehood under siege

 AMERICAN CHAPLAIN Rabbi Herschel Schacter conducts religious services at the liberated Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945

Reaccepting the Torah: Looking back at the first Shavuot after the fall of Nazi Germany

 CONFIRMATION AT the Orthodox Temple Beth Shalom in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1954. Center, Rabbi Jacob Kraft. Fourth from left, Ruth Weinstein.

Confirmations on Shavuot's first day helped preserve American Jewish identity

By DAVID GEFFEN
PREPARING FOR Shavuot in Mevo Horon

A Zionist holiday: By celebrating Shavuot, we celebrate resettling Israel

 memorial for Women Wage Peace activist Vivian Silver, killed on October 7, 2023, at Kibbutz Be'eri.

Passover 2025: A ‘midrashic’ lesson for these days

 PHARAOH’S ARMY engulfed by the Red Sea, by Frederick Arthur Bridgman, 1900. ‘The wind dropped, the waters flooded back, and the entire Egyptian force was drowned.’

Passover 2025: Crossing your own Red Sea

 An illustrative image of a maze with a large question mark inside.

Passover 2025: When God hides, we still believe

 ‘The Tenth Plague: Killing the Firstborn Son,’ from a collection by Joseph Mallord and William Turner.

The tragedy of the firstborn: Inherent legal, societal burdens of the eldest child

By HAIM KATZ , SAM KATZ
HARVESTING WHEAT in a field near Rehovot.

Counting the Omer: A journey from Passover to Shavuot

 An illustrative image of a Passover Seder plate.

Passover 2025: Are we a nation or a family?

 ALL-IMPORTANT: Children take part in a practice Seder.

'Jewish & Israel Trivia': The perfect trivia challenge for the Passover Seder

 'Moses Parting the Red Sea' by Hans Jordaens.

The Passover paradox: Being given freedom from slavery, but also new strict rules

By MORDECHAI BECK
 'Moses and Aaron speak before Pharaoh,' by Benjamin West.

Passover: The message of empathy in the Haggadah

 CAVE OF the Patriarchs in Hebron’s Old City.

'Departing Egypt: Passover Haggadah': Excerpts for insights at the Passover Seder

 A man is seen performing the ritual of bedikat hametz, looking for traces of bread by candlelight to be swept with a feather, in Jerusalem.

The history of bedikat hametz: From Talmudic era until today

By DAVID GEFFEN
 Rabbi David Geffen is seen holding his copy of The American Heritage Haggadah, which he wrote.

The American Heritage Haggadah: A personal story of production and publication

By DAVID GEFFEN
 An illustrative image of Jews dancing at the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Passover 2025: A spiritual call for unity for the 2nd Passover since Oct. 7

By RABBI TULLY BRYKS
 YORAM RAANAN, ‘Kabbalat Shabbat Hagadol,’ 2020, acrylic on canvas, 100x130 cm.

Shabbat Hagadol: Receiving the great Sabbath

By MEIRA RAANAN , ESTHER CAMERON
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