JEWISH CALENDAR • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Jewish calendar

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/dʒˈuɪʃ kˈæləndər/ Listen

noun

Jewish calendar n. A lunisolar calendar in use among Hebraic peoples, reckoning from the year 3761 b. c., the date traditionally given for the Creation. Note: It received its present fixed form from Hillel II. about 360 a. d. The present names of the months, which are Babylonian-Assyrian in origin, replaced older ones, Abib, Bul, etc., at the time of the Babylonian Exile. Nineteen years constitute a lunar cycle, of which the 3d, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th, and 19th years are leap years. The year 5663 (1902-3 a. d.) was the first year of the 299th lunar cycle. The common year is said to be defective, regular, or perfect (or abundant) according as it has 353, 354, or 355 days. The leap year has an intercalary month, and a total of 383 (defective), 384 (regular), or 385 (perfect, or abundant) days. The calendar is complicated by various rules providing for the harmonious arrangement of festivals, etc., so that no simple perpetual calendar can be constructed.

See images of 'Jewish calendar'

Etymology of 'Jewish calendar'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Jewish calendar" Quotes from Famous Books

... p. 669, and regarding a kind of worship of angels, of the month, and of the moon, and not celebrating the new moons, or other festivals, unless the moon appeared. Which, indeed, seems to me the earliest mention of any regard to the phases in fixing the Jewish calendar, of which the Talmud and later Rabbins talk so much, and upon so very little ...

— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... of the Jewish name for the feast of the Passover, with which it is historically associated by the Christian Church. Terrible quarrels have occurred in early ages over fixing Easter Day and its exact relation to the Jewish calendar. This is the explanation of its being "a movable feast" and of the consequent inconvenience to Parliament, schoolboys, and Bank-holiday-makers at the present day. It must be admitted that when Easter comes as early as it sometimes does ...

— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... of our exile we had forgotten the Jewish calendar completely. But Yekil prided himself on being able to distinguish the days "by their color and smell," especially Fridays; and his friends confirmed his statements. He used to boast that he could keep track of every day ...

— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg

... According to the Jewish calendar it was the first Passover night, when Israel's liberation from the bondage of Egypt is commemorated by a feast and family reunion which form the greatest event in the domestic life ...

— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... the Jews of Mstislavl was promulgated, as a day of fasting and to celebrate the third day of the month of Kislev, on which the cruel ukase was revoked, as a day of rejoicing. Had all the disasters of that era been perpetuated in the same manner, the Jewish calendar would consist entirely of these commemorations of national misfortunes, whether in the form of "ordinary" persecutions or ...

— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow