The Jewish Calendar


The Jews used two kinds of calendars:

Civil Calendar - official calendar of kings, childbirth, and contracts.
Sacred Calendar - from which festivals were computed.

Hebrew months were alternately 30 and 29 days long. Their year, shorter than ours, had 354 days. Therefore, about every 3 years (7 times in 19 years) an extra 29-day month, Veadar, was added between Adar and Nisan.


Names of Months Corresponds with No. of Days Civil Month Sacred Month
Tishri Sept.-Oct. 30 1 7
Heshvan Oct.-Nov. 29 or 30 2 8
Chislev Nov.-Dec. 29 or 30 3 9
Tebeth Dec.-Jan. 29 4 10
Shebat Jan.-Feb. 30 5 11
Adar Feb.-Mar. 29 or 30 6 12
Nisan Mar.-Apr. 30 7 1
Iyar Apr.-May 29 8 2
Sivan May-June 30 9 3
Tammuz June-July 29 10 4
Ab July-Aug. 30 11 5
Elul Aug.-Sept 29 12 6