Library: Holidays and Cultural Observances: Find Background Information

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Key Information

Some holidays are based on the lunar calendar (moon cycles); which can vary based on region, practice, and religion, which means they will vary each year. This guide aims to provide accurate information for the current academic year and following. If you notice an error, please let us know. if we should include another date, please let us know! Feel free to use this guide when planning events and scheduling activities in the classroom.

Restrictions:

Catholicism restrictions apply: Catholic dietary guidelines apply throughout Lent (date vary each year). These retrictions include meat while fish is allowed every Friday of the Lenten season.

Halal restrictions apply: Islamic dietary laws apply throughout the year. These restrictions include alcohol and pork.

Hindu restrictions apply: Hindi dietary guidelins apply throughout the year. These restriction include eggs, fish, meat, and poultry.

Kosher restrictions apply: Jewish dietary guidelines apply daily throughout the year. These restrictions include pork, shellfish (fish is allowed) and mixing meat with dairy.

Other restrictions: Occasional dietary restrictions for other religions are listed with the specific event to which they apply.

EBooks

America's Favorite Holidays: Candid Histories
America's Favorite Holidays explores how five of America's culturally important holidays—Christmas, Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, and Thanksgiving—came to be what they are today, seasonal and religious celebrations heavily influenced by modern popular culture. Deftly distilling information from a wide range of sources, Bruce David Forbes reveals often-surprising answers to questions about each holiday's traditions. Was Christmas always as commercialized as it is today? Is Thanksgiving a religious or secular holiday? When did we begin trick-or-treating on Halloween? Appealing and insightful, America's Favorite Holidays satisfies our curiosity about the origins of our holidays and the fascinating ways in which religion and culture mix.
America’s Forgotten Holiday: May Day and Nationalism, 1867-1960
Though now a largely forgotten holiday in the United States, May Day was founded here in 1886 by an energized labor movement as a part of its struggle for the eight-hour day. In ensuing years, May Day took on new meaning, and by the early 1900s had become an annual rallying point for anarchists, socialists, and communists around the world. Yet American workers and radicals also used May Day to advance alternative definitions of what it meant to be an American and what America should be as a nation.Mining contemporary newspapers, party and union records, oral histories, photographs, and rare film footage, America's Forgotten Holiday explains how May Days celebrants, through their colorful parades and mass meetings, both contributed to the construction of their own radical American identities and publicized alternative social and political models for the nation.This fascinating story of May Day in America reveals how many contours of American nationalism developed in dialogue with political radicals and workers, and uncovers the cultural history of those who considered themselves both patriotic and dissenting Americans.
The Delicious History of the Holiday
Our holidays lie near the heart of our emotional life, enjoyed for a fortnight, fed on imagination for eleven months of the year. What we want from our holidays tells a lot about who we are and what we wish we were.In this charming account, Fred Inglis traces the rise of the holiday from its early roots in the Grand Tour, through the coming of Thomas Cook and his Blackpool packages.
Ramadan: The Holy Month of Fasting
The month of Ramadan offers the opportunity to improve one's personal and spiritual behavior. By focusing on positive thoughts and actions, Muslims build a closer connection with God and come away from the month feeling spiritually renewed. Ramadan: The Holy Month of Fasting explores the richness and diversity of the Islamic tradition by focusing on an event of great spiritual significance and beauty in the lives of Muslims.
The Rosh Hashanah Anthology
Back by popular demand, the classic JPS holiday anthologies remain essential and relevant in our digital age. Unequaled in-depth compilations of classic and contemporary writings, they have long guided rabbis, cantors, educators, and other readers seeking the origins, meanings, and varied celebrations of the Jewish festivals. The Rosh Hashanah Anthology is designed to make the commemoration of the Jewish New Year meaningful as both a solemn and a festive day. Its religious impact, significance, history, and messages are embodied in the great treasures of Jewish classical writings—the Bible, Talmud, midrashim, medieval theological and philosophical works, codes of law and liturgy—and all are featured in this volume. In addition, modern works by S. Y. Agnon, Franz Rosenzweig, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Elie Wiesel accompany liturgical selections with commentaries, depictions of Rosh Hashanah observances in many lands, detailed programming suggestions, illustrations, and an extensive bibliography.
The Sabbath Anthology
Back by popular demand, the classic JPS holiday anthologies remain essential and relevant in our digital age. Unequaled in-depth compilations of classic and contemporary writings, they have long guided rabbis, cantors, educators, and other readers seeking the origins, meanings, and varied celebrations of the Jewish festivals. The Sabbath Anthology delves into one of the earliest Jewish institutions—the holiday the prophet Isaiah characterized as “the day of delight”—elucidating its history, laws, customs and traditions, religious and ethical insights, and observances in different eras throughout the world. A wealth of Jewish creativity past and present—“The Sabbath in Judeo-Hellenistic Literature” by Flavius Josephus and Philo Judaeus; Talmud and midrashim; medieval Jewish literature by Judah Halevi, Abraham ibn Ezra, and Moses Maimonides; modern Jewish literature by Solomon Schechter, Mordecai Kaplan, Sholom Asch, Hayyim Nahman Bialik, and Ahad Ha'am; short stories by S. Y. Agnon, I. L. Peretz, Meyer Levin, and Martin Buber; ceremonial and decorative art; musical compilations and programming—will yield delight for many Sabbaths to come.
The Spring Festival
The Spring Festival'is the most important day for Chinese people. It truly creates a carnival for unification of family members and for celebration at the end of a year. This book introduces the origin, development, and traditions of'The Spring Festival,'and it offers readers a panoramic view of this unique Chinese festival. The book - written as an English-Chinese bilingual text - tells the stories behind the festival's name and covers nearly every aspect of the festival. The influence of the festival on ethnic minorities of China and overseas Chinese diasporas is also included.
The Yom Kippur Anthology
Back by popular demand, the classic JPS holiday anthologies remain essential and relevant in our digital age. Unequaled in-depth compilations of classic and contemporary writings, they have long guided rabbis, cantors, educators, and other readers seeking the origins, meanings, and varied celebrations of the Jewish festivals. Drawing on Jewish creativity from hundreds of sources—the Bible, postbiblical literature, Talmud, midrashim, prayers with commentaries, Hasidic tales, short stories, poems, liturgical music—and describing Yom Kippur observances in various lands and eras, The Yom Kippur Anthology vividly evokes the vitality of this holiday throughout history and its significance for the modern Jew. Literary works by prominent authors S. Y. Agnon, Martin Buber, Meyer Levin, I. L. Peretz, Franz Rosenzweig, Sholom Aleichem, Elie Wiesel, and Herman Wouk also illuminate the spiritual grandeur of the holiday.