Upcoming Biblical Holidays (Karaite Korner)

The following was recently received from Nehemia Gordon.

Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2008 11:37 PM
Subject: [Karaite Korner Newsletter] #341: Upcoming Biblical Holidays

Karaite Korner Newsletter #341

Upcoming Biblical Holidays

Many of you have asked about the dates of the upcoming biblical holidays. On the Karaite Korner website we have listed Yom Teruah, the Day of Shouting, as "October 2, 2008 (pending sighting)". Further down the page the new moon observation for September 30, 2008 is also listed as "pending sighting". The truth is that there is little chance the moon will be visible on September 30th, but we will look just to make sure. On September 30th the moon has a "lagtime" of twenty
minutes, which means the moon will set over Jerusalem only twenty minutes after sunset. In over twenty years of new moon observations no one has ever seen a new moon from Israel with only twenty minutes of lagtime and all the prediction criteria consider this sighting impossible. However, because there is a biblical holiday involved we will look all the same. If we do not see the moon on September 30th, then the next evening, October 1st becomes new moon by default. Yom Teruah will then be the evening of October 1st and the daytime of October 2nd.

The expected dates of the biblical holidays and the new moon sightings are posted at:
http://www.karaite-korner.org/holiday_dates.shtml

Nehemia Gordon
Jerusalem, Israel

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