Jewish
History of Sukkot: Festival of Booths
Reading Time: 3 minutesHISTORY OF SUKKOT: FESTIVAL OF BOOTHS Tonight, at sunset on September 25, begins the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, also known as the Festival of Booths or the Festival of Tabernacles. We’ve talked about the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur; Sukkot, which follows five days later, differs in that it is one of…
Read MoreHistory of Yom Kippur: Day of Atonement
Reading Time: 2 minutesHISTORY OF YOM KIPPUR he Jewish High Holy Days begin with Rosh Hashanah and continue until Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur, the “Day of Atonement,” or more correctly Yom ha-Kippurim (Leviticus 16), dates back to Jewish antiquity, nearly 4,000 years to the time of Moses. This most solemn occasion of the Jewish Festival cycle was the season…
Read MoreHistory of Rosh Hashanah: Jewish New Year
Reading Time: 2 minutesHISTORY OF ROSH HASHANAH osh Hashanah marks the beginning of the Jewish new year, which starts tomorrow according to the Jewish calendar; tomorrow begins at sundown tonight. “Rosh” is Hebrew for “head,” and Rosh Hashanah refers to the head of the year on the 1st day of Tishri, the seventh month of the Jewish ecclesiastical…
Read MoreHistory of Pentecost
Reading Time: 3 minutesHISTORY OF PENTECOST The Feast of Pentecost is taken from the Greek word πεντηκόστη, which means “the 50th,” referring to the fiftieth day after the Jewish Passover and the Christian Easter. In the Jewish calendar, this aligns with the harvest festival Shavuot, known as the “Feast of Weeks,” which occurs seven weeks (7 ×…
Read MoreHistory of Shavuot: The Feast of Weeks
Reading Time: 2 minutesHISTORY OF SHAVUOT Tonight at sundown begins the Jewish holiday Shavuot, also known as the Feast of Weeks, and continues until sundown on May 23. The holiday, also known in Greek as Pentecost, is on the sixth day of the Hebrew lunarsolar calendar month of Sivan, which means that in the Gregorian solar calendar, it…
Read MoreHistory of Holocaust Remembrance Day
Reading Time: 3 minutesHistory of Holocaust Remembrance Day oday, April 14, 2026, marks the beginning of Holocaust Remembrance Day in America. It is a part of the eight Holocaust Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust (DRVH), established by the U.S. Congress as the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust. The U.S. Army remembers the six…
Read MoreHistory of Passover: the Jewish Pesach Holiday
Reading Time: 2 minutesHISTORY OF PASSOVER Podcast version unset tonight, April 1, marks the beginning of Passover. Exodus 12 in the Hebrew Bible tells the story of Passover from the life of Moses. Ten plagues were visited upon the Egyptian pharaoh (starring Yul Brynner in The Ten Commandments, though he was better in The King and I)…
Read MoreHistory of Purim: The Story of Esther
Reading Time: 5 minutesHISTORY OF PURIM Podcast version urim, or “lots,” is a Jewish holiday that celebrates the saving of the Jewish people from annihilation during the Achaemenid Empire, around five centuries before Christ, as recounted in the Old Testament Book of Esther. This was during the reign of the Persian King Ahasuerus. It is celebrated today as…
Read MoreHistory of Epiphany and Twelfth Night: Ending the 12 Days of Christmas?
Reading Time: 3 minutesHISTORY OF TWELFTH NIGHT AND EPIPHANY Podcast version Twelfth Night is on January 5, the eve of Epiphany, which falls on January 6 in the Christian calendar. piphany signifies the event of the Magi, or Wise Men, visiting the baby Jesus. In some Latin cultures, it is known as Three Kings Day.
Read MoreHistory of Chanukah: The Festival of Lights
Reading Time: 2 minutesHISTORY OF CHANUKAH his evening, at sundown, December 14, Chanukah begins. It is more commonly spelled Hanukkah; both are a transliteration of the Hebrew word חֲנֻכָּה , meaning “dedication.” This Jewish holiday traces its roots back more than 2,000 years. What’s the history behind this popular Jewish festival?
Read MoreJerusalem in a Day, part 3
Reading Time: 4 minutesHISTORY IN JERUSALEM: ISLAMIC TRADITION In Part 1, I discussed some of the Christian sites in the city of Jerusalem. In Part 2, I discussed the Jewish tradition. In this final article, I’ll examine the third most important Muslim site in the world, after Mecca and Medina. Urusalim (Jerusalem) gets its name from the Canaanites,…
Read MoreJerusalem in a Day, part 2
Reading Time: 5 minutesHISTORY IN JERUSALEM: JEWISH TRADITION In Part 1, I discussed some of the Christian sites in the city of Jerusalem. Here, we discuss the Jewish tradition. In 1995 Jerusalem celebrated 3,000 years of the City of David, commemorating when King David entered the city and made it his capital, rather than Hebron. It was a…
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