We’ve been hard at work this past year making Hebcal easier to use and a more complete resource. Here is a summary of the changes we’ve made (major and minor) during the past Gregorian year.
Fully Hebrew calendars
Major contribution by Doron Behar
In December 2025, Hebcal added support for fully Hebrew calendars, introducing a fundamentally different calendar model from the traditional Gregorian-first layout. Instead of presenting Gregorian months with Hebrew dates as annotations, this new mode uses Hebrew months as the primary structure, with Gregorian dates shown as secondary, auxiliary information.
This inversion more closely reflects how the Hebrew calendar is traditionally experienced, making Hebrew months, holidays, and week structures first-class elements rather than overlays. Printable full-year PDF output is also supported.
You’ll find the new options on our custom Jewish calendar page:
Holidays
We corrected Sigd date handling when 29 Cheshvan falls on Shabbat. Sigd is normally observed on 29 Cheshvan, but when that date coincides with Shabbat (as in Hebrew year 5785), the holiday is observed earlier, on Thursday, in accordance with Israeli law. This matches actual practice, as reported in contemporary coverage such as the Jerusalem Post.
Torah Readings
We added the Megillah reading for the morning of Tisha B’Av, corrected Ashkenazic transliteration for Shabbat Chol ha-Moed Sukkot, fixed the Hebrew spelling of Korach with niqqud (קֹרַח) and without (קורח). Aliyah divisions for Parashat Terumah now align with Koren, Etz Hayyim, and the USCJ Luach.
The Parsha Year page is now easier to read on both mobile devices and large screens.
Daily Learning calendars
We added four new study cycles added to the existing suite of perpetual learning calendars:
Perek Yomi introduces an alternate option for Mishnah study: one full chapter per day. This complements the already-available Mishna Yomi calendar (two mishnayot per day) by offering a faster, chapter-based rhythm that completes the Mishnah on a shorter cycle. The Mishnah, redacted around 200 CE, is the foundational text of the Oral Torah and the basis for later Talmudic discussion.
Daily Rambam (Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah) now includes support for the traditional three-chapters-per-day track, in addition to the existing one-chapter-per-day option.
Sefer HaMitzvos Yomi adds a daily study calendar for Rambam’s enumeration of the 613 commandments. This cycle focuses on one or more mitzvot each day, offering a thematic alternative to chapter-based halachic study. The cycle takes just under one year to complete.
Kitzur Shulchan Aruch Yomi provides a daily learning cycle for Rabbi Shlomo Ganzfried’s concise halachic compendium, covering practical Jewish law for everyday life. The yomi schedule allows learners to complete the work over the course of one Hebrew year.
Developer web APIs
We have added experimental support for the new Model Context Protocol (MCP) standard to enable AI models such as Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini to access and interact with more precise Hebrew calendar and Jewish holidays instead of relying on built-in “knowledge”. Supported Hebcal MCP methods include bidirectional conversion between Gregorian and Hebrew dates, Yahrzeit calculation, weekly Torah portion lookup, Jewish holiday listings for an entire civil year, and daily learning schedules such as Daf Yomi. Hebcal’s remote MCP server URL is available at https://www.hebcal.com/mcp
Assur Melacha (work forbidden) API: Hebcal.com now offers an experimental REST API for determining for a given location if the date and time has a melacha (work) prohibition. This API can be used by home automation systems or other applications that wish to change functionality when Shabbat or yontiff begins or ends.
The Yahrzeit + Anniversary REST API now supports Hebrew dates as an alternative to Gregorian dates, e.g. &hyX=5769&hmX=Cheshvan&hdX=15. Hebrew month names may be specified in Hebrew (UTF-8) or transliterated using the same technique as on the Hebrew Date Converter REST API.
Localization
We added Portuguese translations, courtesy Zushe Ledovitch.
The Jewish calendar REST API now supports Hebrew memo. These translations were AI-assisted and may need some edits.
Miscellaneous / UI and usability
Molad announcements were shortened and clarified (from “Molad Sivan: Fri, 35 minutes and 10 chalakim after 3:00pm” to “Molad Sivan: Friday, 3:35pm and 10 chalakim“). Shabbat Mevarchim pages now display Molad times.
We added CSV download support for Shabbat Candle-lighting times (year-at-a-glance / “Refrigerator times”).
When selecting a city for candle-lighting and fast times, our typeahead search now includes a clear (×) button.
iCalendar feeds now include the newer REFRESH-INTERVAL and improve compatibility by fixing default to be P7D.
To reduce server load of spiders/robots indexing extreme past (Gregorian year 100 or earlier) and far-future years (Gregorian year 3000 or later), the website no longer publishes detailed holiday or Torah reading pages. Converting between Hebrew and Gregorian dates for very early years is mathematically possible (and still supported by our Hebrew Date Converter), but the results should be treated as approximations rather than historically precise dates. See Hebrew and Gregorian date conversion accuracy for more details.
Following modern HTTP semantics, we transitioned broadly to ETag-based caching, removing Last-Modified headers. This improves CDN behavior and client cache correctness.
