Passover 2020

April 2020 Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 1 April Fools Day Wednesday April 1 -4 years, -8 months, -21 days or -1726 days 2 3 4 5 Palm Sunday Sunday April 5 -4 years, -8 months, -17 days or -1722 days 6 7 8 9 Passover Thursday April 9 -4 years, -8 months, -13 days or -1718 days 10 Good Friday Friday April 10 -4 years, -8 months, -12 days or -1717 days 11 12 Easter Sunday April 12 -4 years, -8 months, -10 days or -1715 days 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Earth Day Wednesday April 22 -4 years, -8 months or -1705 days 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Passover for the year 2020 starts on the evening of Wednesday, April 8th and ends the 7 day festival at sunset on Wednesday, April 15th for Reform and progressive Jews living inside Israel who follow the Biblical text. For Orthodox, Hasidic, and generally Jews outside Israel the festival lasts 8 days ending at sunset on Thursday, April 16th. For the Jewish calendar night begins before day, thus the holiday or festival begins on the sunset of the previous day.

Passover is a spring festival that begins in the months of March or April on the Gregorian calendar. Passover starts on the 15th day of the month of Nisan which is on the first night of a full moon after the northern vernal equinox (except leap months can make the festival start after the second full moon after the northern vernal equinox as in the year 2016).

The 7 or 8 day festival is one of the most important celebrations on the Hebrew calendar commemorating the emancipation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt. It begins with families gathering together the first night (first 2 nights for many communities outside Israel) for dinner called seder (meaning “order” of “arrangement” in Hebrew) and ends 7 to 8 days later.

Why do Jewish holidays start at nighttime?

According to the Torah, the story of creation in Genesis says “And it was evening, and it was morning day one”, “And it was evening, and it was morning; the second day”, thus night comes before day. So for the Jewish calendar all days begin at nightfall and end the next day at nightfall including holidays.

Days to Passover 2020

Thursday, April 9th is day number 100 of the 2020 calendar year with -4 years, -8 months, -13 days until the start of the celebration of Passover 2020.