Hebrew Calendar smart home integration, free and open source
Hebrew date, Shabbat, holidays, candle lighting, havdalah, Torah portion and Omer, computed at home.
Published by guim31
- Devices
- Version 1.0.1
- Requires Gladys >=5.1.0
- ★ 0
The Jewish calendar of your house in Gladys: the Hebrew date, Shabbat and the holidays, candle lighting and havdalah times, the weekly Torah portion, the Omer and the main zmanim. As sensors for the dashboard and the scene conditions, and as scene triggers: dim the lights at candle lighting, turn the alarm clock off on Shabbat and holiday mornings, get a reminder an hour before Shabbat.
- Computed at home, with the engine of hebcal.com (
@hebcal/core): no account, no Internet access, nothing leaves your Gladys. - Israel or diaspora: one or two days of holiday, and the weekly portion that goes with it.
- Your community's customs: minutes of candle lighting before sunset (18, 40 in Jerusalem…) and the end of Shabbat (8.5° or 42, 50, 72 minutes).
Tested with its automated test suite against the times published by hebcal.com (Paris, Jerusalem, New York, 2025 to 2027), not yet on many real Gladys instances: feedback welcome on the Gladys forum or in the GitHub issues. The times are given for convenience: follow your rabbi for halachic decisions.
What you need
- Gladys Assistant 5.1.0 or later.
- A house with its coordinates in Gladys (Settings → Houses): the times depend on the position of the house.
- The right time zone in Gladys (Settings → System): every time is computed and shown in it.
Configuration
Install the integration (Integrations → Install from GitHub, address
https://github.com/guim31/gladys-hebcal), open its Configuration tab, check the fields below and save.
Then open the Discover tab and add the Hebrew calendar device.
House and time zone
The integration uses the first Gladys house that has coordinates. Without one, the integration page says so and the integration tries again every 10 minutes. After moving the house, restart the integration (or save its configuration) to recompute the times at once.
Israel or diaspora
Automatic chooses Israel when the time zone of Gladys is Asia/Jerusalem, the diaspora otherwise.
Choose explicitly if your community follows the other calendar.
Candle lighting and havdalah
- Candle lighting: minutes before sunset: 18 by default. Jerusalem uses 40, Haifa 30, Tel Aviv 20; some communities use 15, 20 or 22.
- End of Shabbat and holidays: when havdalah is shown and Shabbat ends for the device and the triggers. The sun 8.5° below the horizon (three small stars, the default of hebcal.com), or 42, 50 or 72 minutes after sunset (72: Rabbeinu Tam).
Names and language
- Language of the texts: the names of the sensors, the times and the texts of the scene events and of the scene action (French by default). The sensor names are set when the device is added: after a change, delete and re-add the device to rename them. The widget follows the language of the person looking at it.
- Holiday and month names: the usual names of the language ("Pessa'h", "Pessach", "Pésaj"; the transliteration when there is no usual name, as for most weekly portions), the transliteration of hebcal.com (Sephardic: "Shavuot"), the Ashkenazi one ("Shavuos"), or Hebrew script.
The calendar device
| Sensor | Value |
|---|---|
| Hebrew date | "9 Cheshvan 5787". Changes at sunset, like the Hebrew day |
| Holiday today | The holiday, Rosh Chodesh, fast or day of Chanukah ("Chanukah 3/8"), "None" |
| Shabbat or holiday now | On from candle lighting to havdalah (Shabbat, Yom Kippur and yom tov days) |
| Shabbat or holiday tomorrow | On when tomorrow's daytime is Shabbat or a yom tov day |
| Next candle lighting | "Fri, Oct 23, 06:27 PM" |
| Next havdalah | "Sat, Oct 24, 07:32 PM" |
| Weekly Torah portion | The portion of the coming Shabbat, or the holiday read instead |
| Omer count | The day of the Omer (1 to 49), 0 outside the counting. Changes at sunset |
| Days until the next holiday | Days until the next yom tov day (0 on the day itself) |
Every value is pushed by the integration when it changes (at sunset, at candle lighting, at havdalah) and republished every 12 hours: there is nothing to poll. Consecutive days (a holiday followed by Shabbat, the two days of a holiday in the diaspora) are one single period.
Dashboard widget
Hebrew calendar shows the Hebrew date, Shabbat or the holiday under way with its end, the next candle lighting and havdalah, the day of the Omer, the weekly portion, the holiday of the day, the next holiday and, unless turned off in its settings, the zmanim of the day: dawn (alot hashachar, 16.1°), sunrise, latest Shema (Gra), midday (chatzot), sunset and nightfall (tzeit, 8.5°).
Scene triggers
- Candle lighting: at candle lighting time, or 10, 15, 30 minutes, 1 or 2 hours before (the When
field, required). Also on the second evening of a holiday, at nightfall. Variables: minutes before, kind
(
shabbatorholiday), name, time (ISO) and local time. - Shabbat or holiday begins: at candle lighting, once for consecutive days. Variables: kind, name, includes Shabbat, end (ISO) and local end.
- Shabbat or holiday ends: at havdalah, once the last of the consecutive days is over. Variables: kind, name, includes Shabbat.
The Shabbat or holiday filter keeps one kind only (empty: both). A Shabbat that is also a holiday, and a period mixing both, count as a holiday.
Scene action "Day information"
Gives the information of today or tomorrow (Day field, empty: today) to the following actions: date, Hebrew date, holiday, Shabbat or holiday (1 = yes, 0 = no), candle lighting and havdalah of that day, weekly portion, day of the Omer, sunrise, latest Shema, sunset and nightfall (local times, empty when the day has none). Test the 1/0 value with a Condition on variables step.
Scene examples
- Shabbat lights: trigger Shabbat or holiday begins → turn on the dining room lights, switch the heating to comfort; Shabbat or holiday ends → back to normal.
- Reminder: trigger Candle lighting, When = 1 hour before → send the message "Candle lighting at {{triggerEvent.data.local_time}}".
- No alarm clock on Shabbat: at 21:00, action Day information with Day = tomorrow, then a Condition on variables: "Shabbat or holiday" equals 0 → set the wake-up alarm.
- Condition: in any scene, the condition "Shabbat or holiday now" is Off keeps the scene from running during Shabbat.
Troubleshooting
- "No house with coordinates": set the latitude and longitude of a house in Settings → Houses; the integration picks them up within 10 minutes.
- Times off by an hour: check the time zone of Gladys in Settings → System.
- Sensor names in the wrong language: the names are set when the device is added; delete and re-add the device after changing the language.
- A trigger fired late or not at all after a restart: an event due while the integration was stopped is sent when it starts again within 15 minutes, never later, and never twice.
Limits
- Times are computed for the coordinates of the house, at sea level, like hebcal.com by default.
- Near the poles, where the sun does not set or does not go down 8.5°, candle lighting or havdalah may be missing: no Shabbat period is shown then.
- The reminders before candle lighting are fixed (10, 15, 30 minutes, 1 or 2 hours).
- One house: the first Gladys house with coordinates.
Credits
Calendar, times and weekly portions: @hebcal/core by Michael J.
Radwin and the hebcal contributors (GPL-2.0-or-later), the engine of hebcal.com. Home Assistant's
jewish_calendar integration inspired the sensors. This integration is not affiliated with hebcal.com. It
is published under the GPL-3.0-or-later license.
Configuration settings
These are the settings Hebrew Calendar asks for in its configuration screen in Gladys.
| Setting | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| How it works | section | No | Everything is computed inside Gladys, without any internet service, from the coordinates of your house (Settings > Houses) and in the Gladys timezone (Settings > System), with the engine of hebcal.com. The Hebrew day starts at sunset. |
| Language of the texts | select | No | Language of the sensor names, of the times and of the scene texts. Names are set when the device is created: to rename them after a change, delete and re-add the device. |
| Holiday and month names | select | No | Usual names in the language of the texts (transliterated when there is none), a transliteration, or Hebrew script. |
| Israel or diaspora | select | No | The holidays (one or two days) and the weekly portion differ. Automatic: Israel when the Gladys timezone is Asia/Jerusalem. |
| Candle lighting: minutes before sunset | number | No | 18 in most communities, 40 in Jerusalem, 30 in Haifa, 20 in Tel Aviv. |
| End of Shabbat and holidays | select | No | When havdalah is shown: the sun 8.5° below the horizon (three small stars, hebcal.com default), or a fixed delay after sunset. |
How to install Hebrew Calendar in Gladys
- In Gladys, open Integrations: Hebrew Calendar appears in the catalog, next to the native integrations, with a community badge.
- Click Install. Gladys pulls the Docker image (
ghcr.io/guim31/gladys-hebcal:1.0.1), starts it in a sandbox isolated from the core, and generates the integration's interface (devices, discovery and configuration). - Open the Configuration screen of the integration, fill in the settings, and save.
- You can also install it directly from its repository URL: https://github.com/guim31/gladys-hebcal.
Hebrew Calendar requires Gladys >=5.1.0. The catalog inside Gladys refreshes every hour, so a new version becomes available at most one hour after its release.
Not running Gladys yet? It is free and open source: follow the installation guide to get started.
About external integrations
Hebrew Calendar is an external integration: a community integration packaged as a Docker container and published on GitHub, that Gladys installs in one click and runs in a sandbox isolated from its core. It is published and maintained by guim31, not by the Gladys core team.
- Browse all integrations, native and community
- Build and publish your own external integration
- Source code on GitHub — source of this documentation