This year, for the first time in the history of the state of Israel, Christmas Day will be a public holiday. This is not the result of a sudden concession by the Israeli government to its Christian population or to honour Jerusalem as the birthplace of Christianity. It is simply because Christmas overlaps with an official Jewish holy day, Hanukkah, something which hasn’t happened for more than a century.
Unlike Catholic and Protestant Christmas, which is always on December 25 in the Gregorian calendar, Hanukkah, like other Jewish holy dates, changes each year. All Jewish festivals are reliant on the ancient Hebrew calendar which follows the phases of the moon and according to which we are now in the year 5777, not 2016.
