Major Holidays in the Middle East

Sukkot - Etrog

Seasons for Travel in Israel

January 2014-February, 2015

Low Season	Regular Season	High Season
November 23 - December 20, 2014	March 1 – April 12, 2014	April 13-22, 2014
January 4 – February 28, 2015	April 23 – October 7, 2014	October 8-16, 2014
	October 17 – November 22, 2014	December 21, 2014 – January 3, 2015

Major holidays in the Middle East

2014

Holiday	Day	Faith	Description
New Year’s Day	January 1	All	Called ‘Sylvester’ in Hebrew.
Tu Bishvat	January 16	Jewish	New Year of the Trees
Purim	March 16	Jewish	Celebrates the Jewish Deliverance from the Persian Empire
Pesach	April 15-21	Jewish	Jewish Passover
Good Friday	April 18	Christian	Jesus’ Crucifixion
Easter Sunday	April 20	Christian	Jesus’ Resurrection
Holocaust Memorial Day	April 27	Jewish	Remembers the Holocaust
Yom HaZikaron (IDF Memorial Day)	May 4	Jewish	Remembers the fallen solders of Israel’s Wars
Yom Ha’Atzmaut (Israel Independence Day)	May 5	Jewish	Celebrates Israel’s Declaration of Statehood on May 4, 1948. Follows the Jewish Calendar of 5^th of Iyar.
Lag BaOmer	May 18	Jewish	The 33^rd day of the Counting of the Omer between Passover and Pentecost.
Shavuot	June 4	Jewish	‘Festival of Weeks’ or ‘Pentecost’. Begins on the 6^th day of the Hebrew month of Sivan.
Ramadan	June 28	Muslim	The 9^th month of Muslim calendar. A period of fasting (no food or water from sun-up to sunset).
Eid al-Fitr	July 28	Muslim	‘Feast of the Breaking of the Fast.’ Marks the end of Ramadan for Muslims.
Tisha B’Av	August 5	Jewish	A solemn day of fasting for Jews which commemorates the destructions of the Jewish Temple
Rosh HaShanah	September 25-26	Jewish	The Jewish New Year
Yom Kippur	October 4	Jewish	The Day of Atonement
Eid al-Adha	October 4	Muslim/Druze	Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael
Sukkot	October 9-15	Jewish	The Feast of Tabernacles.
Shemini Atzeret	October 16	Jewish	The 8^th day of Sukkot. A separate holiday
Simchat Torah	October 17	Jewish	Marks the end of the Jewish public readings of the Torah. On this day the scroll is rolled back to Genesis.
Hanukkah	December 17-24	Jewish	‘Festival of Lights.’ Recalls the Rededication of the Jewish Temple during the Maccabean Revolt. The 25^th day of Kislev. During this 8-day period, Jews light a candelabrum known as a ‘hanukiah.’
Christmas	December 25	Christian	The birth of Jesus.

2015

Holiday	Day	Faith	Description
New Year’s Day	January 1	All	Called ‘Sylvester’ in Hebrew.
Tu Bishvat	February 4	Jewish	New Year of the Trees
Purim	March 5	Jewish	Celebrates the Jewish Deliverance from the Persian Empire
Pesach	April 4-10	Jewish	Jewish Passover
Good Friday	April 3	Christian	Jesus’ Crucifixion
Easter Sunday	April 5	Christian	Jesus’ Resurrection
Holocaust Memorial Day	April 16	Jewish	Remembers the Holocaust
Yom HaZikaron (IDF Memorial Day)	April 22	Jewish	Remembers the fallen solders of Israel’s Wars
Yom Ha’Atzmaut (Israel Independence Day)	April 23	Jewish	Celebrates Israel’s Declaration of Statehood on May 4, 1948. Follows the Jewish Calendar of 5^th of Iyar.
Lag BaOmer	May 7	Jewish	The 33^rd day of the Counting of the Omer between Passover and Pentecost.
Shavuot	May 24	Jewish	‘Festival of Weeks’ or ‘Pentecost’. Begins on the 6^th day of the Hebrew month of Sivan.
Ramadan	June 18	Muslim	The 9^th month of Muslim calendar. A period of fasting (no food or water from sun-up to sunset).
Eid al-Fitr	July 17	Muslim	‘Feast of the Breaking of the Fast.’ Marks the end of Ramadan for Muslims.
Tisha B’Av	July 26	Jewish	A solemn day of fasting for Jews which commemorates the destructions of the Jewish Temple
Rosh HaShanah	September 14-15	Jewish	The Jewish New Year
Yom Kippur	September 23	Jewish	The Day of Atonement
Eid al-Adha	September 23	Muslim/Druze	Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael
Sukkot	September 28 - October 4	Jewish	The Feast of Tabernacles.
Shemini Atzeret	October 5	Jewish	The 8^th day of Sukkot. A separate holiday
Simchat Torah	October 6	Jewish	Marks the end of the Jewish public readings of the Torah. On this day the scroll is rolled back to Genesis.
Hanukkah	December 7-14	Jewish	‘Festival of Lights.’ Recalls the Rededication of the Jewish Temple during the Maccabean Revolt. The 25^th day of Kislev. During this 8-day period, Jews light a candelabrum known as a ‘hanukiah.’
Christmas	December 25	Christian	The birth of Jesus.

Testimonials

A Story About a Guide Two years ago I went on Pilgrimage to Israel. We had a guide called Eitan, who lived near Nazareth. He was a wonderful guide. He knew all the places we visited and what happened there. As he got to know us he adapted his plans and knew what we would enjoy and what our limits were. He knew the best times of day to visit places so that we got the best experience. He knew the best places to eat and made sure we drank enough. He knew the Bible and challenged us about our faith. He kept us safe and made sure we experienced and learnt as much as we could. As the week went along we came to rely on him, he knew the best way to go, the most interesting places to visit, and we followed him carefully. On the last day we all had lunch together before our flight home and when we left the restaurant we followed Eitan, as usual, to find the coach to go to the airport. As we were walking down a road some of us spotted the coach parked up a side street across the road, but Eitan seemed to be walking past it, we shouted him, but the road was busy and noisy and he didn�t appear to hear us and it looked like he was walking away from the coach, so some of us decided to cross the road near were the coach was parked. After all it would save us a walk back when Eitan realised he�d walked to far! But when Eitan got on the coach he was very upset � of course he had seen the coach, but it was not a safe place to cross the road. Although it appeared to us he was walking away from the coach he was in fact walking up the street to a pedestrian crossing that we did not know about, there had been a good chance that we could have been knocked down as it was a busy road. We could see and hear Eitan clearly and he had shown throughout the week that he was a good guide, yet we still did not trust him, we still thought we know best, we knew where we wanted to get to and thought we could take a short cut! How often do we do that with our faith? We know where we want to be (close to God) but we don�t listen to or respond to the promptings of our guide the Holy Spirit, because we think we know best.

- Hilary Shedlock

Major Jewish, Muslim and Christian Holidays

January 2014-February, 2015

Low Season

Regular Season

High Season

Holiday

Day

Faith

Description

Holiday

Day

Faith

Description

Testimonials