Holidays and Rituals
Rosh Hashanah begins the High Holiday season and marks the Jewish New Year. Learn how to enrich your Rosh Hashanah experience.
Yom Kippur is one of most widely observed holidays on the Jewish calendar. Learn more about The Day of Atonement and how to make it meaningful for you.
Sukkot - The harvest festival commemorates the Israelites' wanderings in the desert following their Exodus from Egypt.
Shemini Atzeret comes at the end of Sukkot and calls for Jews to pray for rain.
Simchat Torah celebrates the completion of the yearly cycle of Torah study.
Chanukah - Shed the light of the menorah on the traditions of Chanukah and learn programming ideas for the Festival of Lights.
Tu B'Shevat is the Jewish New Year of the Trees. Create your own mystical celebration of Israel through nature with a Tu B'Shevat Seder.
Purim - Based on the Biblical Book of Esther, Purim celebrates the profound reversal of fortune when the Jewish community of Persia was rescued by the heroic intervention of Esther and Mordecai.
Passover - The most widely celebrated Jewish holiday, Passover retells the Biblical story of the Israelite Exodus from Egypt. To help you learn more about this complex and beautiful holiday, we offer a comprehensive Passover Guide and many programming resources.
Yom HaShoah - Commemorates the six million Jews who died during the Holocaust. At the same time, it marks the anniversary of the heroic Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943.
Yom Hazikaron - On this Memorial Day, the fourth of Iyar in the Hebrew calendar, we commemorate the soldiers who have fallen fighting for Israel's independence and defending its security.
Yom Haatzma'ut - Israel Independence Day (Iyar 5) celebrates the state of Israel's establishment on May 14, 1948.
Lag B'Omer - Lag B'omer is the thirty-third day of a fifty-day counting season between Passover and Shavuot. In modern day Israel, both traditional and secular Jews celebrate Lag B'Omer with campfires.
Shavuot - Originally an agricultural festival in the month of Sivan, Shavuot was celebrated by pilgrimages to the Temple in Jerusalem, where Jews offered the first fruits of their harvest.
Tisha B'Av - Ninth day of the Hebrew month Av, is a fast day commemorating the destruction of both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. Tisha B'Av has been adopted as a day of national mourning for all tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people throughout our history.
CASE It! Tzedek and the Holidays (Part I and II) is a resource guide for campuses to integrate tzedek/social justice programming and initiatives into Jewish life on campus.
Creating Jewish Encounters on Shabbat - Learn to have an encounter with a Jewish voice from the past and create a conversation between you, your friends and the one for whom only words remain.
Shabbat Notes - A Companion to the Day of Rest, a booklet compiled to communicate a sense of what Shabbat is all about by providing an overview of some of the ritual associated with Shabbat observance along with insightful perspectives on the nature of the Sabbath within Jewish tradition.
Havdalah - Learn how to do Havdalah, the ceremony that formally ends the Sabbath day.
Birkat Hamazon - Grace after Meals - Download or print this PDF version of the prayer following meals with Hebrew text, transliteration and English translation; one of the most ancient prayers in the Jewish liturgy.
