On Thursday, Aug. 26, you should have received an email with a link to calendar entires to mark the significance of the upcoming Jewish holidays: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Passover.

These calendar entries are a reminder to not schedule co- and extracurricular events on these Jewish holidays as well as the evenings prior (each of these holidays begins at sunset the prior day).

Open the email sent Aug. 26 with the subject line “Jewish Holidays Calendar for Download” and follow the steps below to add the holidays directly to your Outlook calendar:

For PC computers:

1. Drag the .ICS file (attached in my email sent to campus Aug. 26) into your calendar tab. The dates should appear on your personal calendar.

For Mac computers: 

1. Double-click the file to open it. If it doesn’t open, you might need to save your file to your computer before you can open it. 
2. When you open the .ICS file, Outlook opens automatically. The event will open in a separate window with the subject: Rosh Hashanah.  
3. Click Save & Close on the event window to save the holidays to your calendar. 

The individual dates are also listed below if you need to add them manually.

There are several holidays in which Jewish law officially says Jewish people are not to work and there are parts of the country where, whether or not you are Jewish, your business or organization would be closed in observance of these holidays (New York City, for example!).

I want to urge the Drake campus community to avoid scheduling events on:

• Rosh Hashanah, which is the Jewish new year. (In 2021, beginning at sundown on Sept. 6 and concluding the night of Sept. 8).
• Yom Kippur, which is the Day of Atonement and considered the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. (In 2021, beginning at sundown on Sept. 15 and concluding the night of Sept. 16.)
• The first and second days of Passover mark a week of honoring the deliverance of the Hebrew people from enslavement in Egypt and through a seder—a ritualized meal, shared in community while remembering the Jewish story of liberation. (In 2022, beginning at sundown on April 15 and concluding the night of April 17.)

Many Jewish members of our community cannot participate in anything that we schedule on these dates.

I want to strongly encourage you to import these calendar holds, and especially as Rosh Hashanah is only a few weeks away. But also, the Office of Equity and Inclusion is working on creating a University-wide Outlook calendar that is inclusive of other major religious holidays. We plan to have this available for you sometime in the next several weeks.

Jewish Holidays

2021
Rosh Hashanah      
Evening (6:00) September 6 all the way through September 8, 2021

Yom Kippur
Evening (6:00) September 15 all the way through September 16, 2021

Passover
Evening (6:00) April 15 all the way through April 17, 2022

2022
Rosh Hashanah        
Evening (6:00) September 25 all the way through September 27, 2022

Yom Kippur
Evening (6:00) October 4 all the way through October 5, 2022

Passover
Evening (6:00) April 5 all the way through April 7, 2023

2023
Rosh Hashanah       
Evening (6:00) September 15 all the way through September 17, 2023

Yom Kippur
Evening (6:00) September 24 all the way through September 25, 2023

Passover
Evening (6:00) April 22 all the way through April 24, 2024

— Jen Harvey, Associate Provost of Campus Equity and Inclusion