Hebrew Calendar
Kislev 5793

Kislev is the ninth month of the Hebrew calendar counting from Nisan, and it falls across November and December: the shortest days of the year, the dark that arrives earlier every evening, and rain that has already come. After the quiet of Cheshvan, this is the month winter settles in.

And at its end, on the 25th of Kislev, Hanukkah begins: eight days entirely concerned with light. It is no accident that the darkest month of the year is also the only one whose festival is defined by a lamp. Kislev is a month whose season and whose content say the same thing; it also holds the only festival in the calendar that opens when the moon has all but disappeared, while every other observance sits on a new moon or a full one.

The month they started counting again in

The name Kislev came back from Babylon with the returning exiles. Unlike most of the month names it already appears in the Bible itself: Zechariah dates a prophecy to it: “on the fourth of the ninth month, in Kislev” ¹, naming the old system and the new one in a single breath. The book of Nehemiah uses the name too.

The period around those verses is exactly what gives the month its weight. These are the years of the return to Zion and the building of the Second Temple, and Kislev keeps recurring in them. Haggai, Zechariah's contemporary, dates the moment the sanctuary's foundations were laid: “from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, from the day the Temple of the Lord was founded” ². The 24th of Kislev, the day before the 25th.

The days of Kislev, in order

Rosh Chodesh Kislev. One day or two, depending on the year: if Cheshvan ran thirty days the new moon lasts two, and if it ran twenty-nine, only one.

19 Kislev. The “Festival of Liberation” in Chabad, marking the release of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi from imprisonment in St Petersburg in 1798. In Chabad communities worldwide it is one of the central dates of the year, marked with gatherings.

25 Kislev. The first day of Hanukkah, opening eight days that run on into Tevet. This is the date on which the Hasmoneans rededicated the Temple after it was purified.

30 Kislev (in the years there is one). Kislev is one of only two months in the calendar whose length changes from year to year, running twenty-nine days or thirty. Which means the day Hanukkah ends moves with it, between the 2nd and the 3rd of Tevet.

The date that came back

There is a coincidence in Kislev that is hard to ignore, and it plays out across centuries.

Yalkut Shimoni relates that the work of the Tabernacle in the wilderness was completed on the 25th of Kislev, and then nothing happened. The Tabernacle stayed folded until the 1st of Nisan, and only then was it erected. Kislev, in which the work was actually finished, got nothing out of it. To which the midrash gives God's reply in three words: “it falls to me to repay” ³.

And the repayment, according to that same midrash, is the Hasmonean rededication, which landed on exactly the 25th of Kislev, a thousand-odd years later. In between those two dates sits Haggai's verse: the foundations of the Second Temple were laid on the 24th of Kislev, the eve of that very day.

None of which explains anything historically, and none of it was meant to. It says something else: that Jewish time is not a straight line but a calendar, and in a calendar a date missed once can come round again.

Light that starts when the dark is deepest

What makes Kislev a single month is that its season and its content say the same thing in two languages.

By the sun, these are the shortest days of the year; evening arrives before half past four and keeps getting earlier into Tevet. By the moon, the 25th of the month is nearly the end: the moon is already thin and going out. Every other observance in the year sits on a full moon (Passover and Sukkot on the fifteenth) or a new one (Rosh Hashanah on the first). Hanukkah alone opens into a double darkness: a long night, and almost no moon.

And in it one candle is lit. The next night, two. The logic of that, beginning small and adding, precisely as everything else is going dark, is the simplest account of the feeling Kislev brings with it. It is also why lit windows on a dark street read instantly as this month. After Hanukkah comes Tevet, and in it the days already start to lengthen again.

Common questions about the month of Kislev

When is Rosh Chodesh Kislev?
It depends on the year (4/11/32 this year). If the preceding Cheshvan ran thirty days, Rosh Chodesh Kislev lasts two: the 30th of Cheshvan and the 1st of Kislev; if Cheshvan ran twenty-nine, it is a single day, the 1st of Kislev. This is one of only two places in the calendar where that varies.

When is the eve of Rosh Chodesh Kislev?
On the 29th of Cheshvan (3/11/32), the last day of that month.

How many days are in Kislev?
Twenty-nine or thirty. Kislev and Cheshvan are the only two months of the Hebrew calendar without a fixed length, and they are how the calendar keeps step with the solar year.

Kislev or Chislev?
Both spellings are in use. Kislev is the standard transliteration today and the one calendars use; Chislev follows older biblical transliteration.

What holidays are in Kislev?
Rosh Chodesh Kislev at the start (4/11/32), the 19th of Kislev in Chabad communities (22/11/32), and Hanukkah, which opens on the 25th and runs on into Tevet (28/11/32-5/12/32). Hanukkah has its own page with dates and times; the grid above shows where it sits inside the month.

A Kislev calendar: the Hebrew and civil dates side by side

The grid at the top of this page shows Kislev as the Hebrew calendar sees it: the large numerals are the days of the Hebrew month, with the corresponding civil date printed beneath each one. You can see at a glance which civil date the 1st of Kislev falls on in the year selected, whether Rosh Chodesh runs one day or two, and exactly where the 25th sits.

Because Kislev always falls between November and January, a civil calendar splits it across two months, which is why Hanukkah is hard to see as one unit there. Here the month appears whole. The button above the grid prints it to a single page, portrait or landscape, without the navigation or this text.

• Every observance of the year in one table, and from there each one's own page: Jewish holidays 2026
• The full printable calendar: printable 2026 Jewish calendar with holidays
• For a civil-month view, in which November and December appear separately: Gregorian month calendar

Related pages

• November 2032
• December 2032
• The Hebrew month of Kislev 5793