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Your Hebrew birthday, and your next twelve

Enter your date, your time and your city of birth. We compute the real sunset of that place on that day — and then read the Hebrew month you were born under.

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Hebrew birthday

Your next twelve Hebrew birthdays, year by year

Your Hebrew date of birth never changes, but the civil day it falls on moves back about eleven days every year. Enter your date of birth: you get your Hebrew date, your mazal, and the civil date of your next twelve Hebrew birthdays.

Sunset, and the place

Why the hour and the city change the answer

In the Hebrew calendar the day does not begin at midnight: it begins at sunset. That is the rhythm the Torah gives to Creation — “and there was evening, and there was morning, one day” — and it is still the rhythm of Shabbat, which enters on Friday evening rather than Saturday morning.

So a person born after sunset was born, in Hebrew terms, on the following day. Someone who comes into the world on a Tuesday at 10 p.m. carries a Hebrew date of Wednesday.

Most converters know this rule and ask you to tick a box: “born after sunset?”. The trouble is that you have to answer it yourself — and to answer it you would need to know at what time the sun set that day, in that place. Sunset does not fall at the same minute in New York, in Los Angeles, in London or in Jerusalem, and it shifts by more than an hour across the year. That is why this page asks for your city and your time instead of a checkbox: it works the sunset out for you.

Beyond the date

Your Hebrew month has a sign

A Hebrew birthday is not only a date to remember for a bar mitzvah or a yahrzeit. In Jewish tradition each Hebrew month carries a mazal — a sign — along with an element, a tribe of Israel, a precious stone and a letter. The mazal is read from the Hebrew month of birth, never from the civil one.

That is where the exact date starts to matter for more than the calendar: when a birth falls on the evening of the last day of a Hebrew month, one day of error moves you into the previous month — and gives you the wrong mazal altogether.

The civil dates above are approximate: the Hebrew calendar being lunisolar, no Hebrew month ever falls on exactly the same civil dates two years running.

A moving anniversary

Why your Hebrew birthday drifts every year

The Hebrew calendar follows the moon for its months and the sun for its seasons. Twelve lunar months fall about eleven days short of a solar year, so the Hebrew birthday moves back roughly eleven days each year in the civil calendar — then jumps forward by about a month in the years when a thirteenth month is added, seven times every nineteen years.

Which is why it is not enough to work the correspondence out once. Your Hebrew date of birth never changes; the civil day on which it returns changes every year.

Frequently asked

The Hebrew birthday in five answers

How do I find my Hebrew birthday?
Convert the civil date, then check the hour: after sunset in your birthplace, the Hebrew date is the following day.

Why does the time change my Hebrew date?
Because the Hebrew day runs from sunset to sunset. And since sunset depends on the place and the season, the city matters as much as the hour.

What is a mazal?
The sign of Jewish tradition, given by your Hebrew month — with its element, its tribe of Israel and its stone.

Does my Hebrew birthday fall on the same civil date each year?
No — it moves back about eleven days a year, and jumps forward in the thirteen-month years.

And if I was born in Adar of a leap year?
The calculation tells Adar I from Adar II and shows the real month. Either way the mazal remains Pisces.

All frequently asked questions →