Working With Diversity, Northern Ireland Section 75 Equality Scheme Advice

Pesach – The Passover (celebrated in March or April) is an eight day celebration marking the exodus of the Jews from Egyptian slavery. The four middle days are treated as ordinary workdays. Special Passover meals are made and food must not contain any yeast or anything that is fermenting. Only unleaven bread and other special food is eaten.

Yom Hashoa* – Remembrance Day for the victims of the Nazi Holocaust. It is marked by lighting memorial candles and the holding of special services.

Lag B'Omer Omer* – The period of 49 days between Passover and Pentecost. Lag B'Omer is the 33 rd day. It is the celebration of the end of a plague that occurred during Roman times and it is the only day during Omer when weddings can take place.

Shavuoth – Pentecost – a celebration of the revelation of the Torah on Mount Sinai. It also celebrates the wheat Harvest.

Tisha B'Av* – A day to fast and to mourn the destruction of the 1 st and 2 nd Temples in Jerusalem.

Rosh Hashanah – New Years day – the anniversary of the world's creation and the marking of the ten days when Jews are judged by God.

Yom Kippur – The Day of Atonement (celebrated in September or October) marks the end of the ten days. It is a day of fasting. The dangers of fasting when ill will be taken into account, by even the most orthodox patient on medical advice.

Sukkoth– A nine day harvest festival. The middle five days are treated as weekdays. It begins five days after Yom Kippur and commemorates the forty years spent in the wilderness after the Jewish flight from Egypt.

Simchat Torah – This follows Sukkoth celebrating one annual cycle of reading the Torah and the beginning of another cycle.

Hanukah* – The Jewish Festival of Lights commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem by Judah Maccabee in 164 BCE after it had been restored form the defilement of Greek idols. Lamps are lit, prayers are recited, gifts are exchanged and Jews rededicate themselves. The festival normally falls during late November/early December.) Hanukah is sometimes spelt Channukuh).

Ti B'Shevat* – This is a New Year for trees. Trees are planted and fruit from Israel is eaten.

Purim* – A celebration of deliverance of the Jews from Persia. The giving of gifts to family and friends and charity to the poor takes place on this day with a day of fasting preceding it.

Not all these festivals are of the same religious significance. The ones, which are not restrictive as to work, writing or switching on lights, are marked with an asterisk.

Special Days