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Reviews

JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICTH (10/28/1999) wrote:
Rating: 5 Stars

Jewish time is usually an expression of disapproval to explain why many Jews (or at least Israelis) are less than pedantic about schedules.

However, its also the name of this piece of Jewish software, which puts a premium on accuracy when dealing with time.

Have you been wondering what day of the week your birthday will fall in the year 2050? Or exactly when Pessah was celebrated in 1600? Its easy to find the answers, as well as answers to more practical questions, by consulting your computer.

Install the diskette on your hard drive and consult it whenever you like. It will be of much more interest, of course, to observant Jews who want to know about holidays, the date of a bar mitzva, days of the Omer, yahrzeits and zmanim (the time limits for reciting the various prayers, Shabbat candle-lighting times, when Shabbat begins and ends and so on).

The disk covers the years 1600 to 2200 (or 5360 to 5960, according to the Jewish calendar).

Very user-friendly and with easy-to-understand help menus, the program offers a wide variety of features. Up to nine individual users can maintain a customized list of birthdays, general anniversaries or yahrzeits and install them in a personal reminder list with an electronic nudnik, or have them included on their ongoing Hebrew and secular calendar.

If you want to know the zmanim at their most accurate, go into options and set your location by latitude, longitude and time; if you live in one of the main Jewish centers, your place of residence will probably be listed in the programs database of cities.

Jewish Time will automatically calculate whether you are in daylight saving or standard time in most locations, but in Israel - when the beginning and end of daylight saving is determined nearly every year by the interior minister, youll have to enter that information.

If youre even more pedantic about zmanim, you can add in other variables such as the elevation (above sea level) of your place of residence, as this can affect sunrise and sunset times. There are 25 different times offered, such as dawn, sunrise, when you may say the Shma, minha gedola, minha ketana, plag haminha, dusk and so on, with the variations according to the two halachic scholars, the Vilna Gaon and the Magen Avraham.

Click on the monthly calendar and get the Jewish calendar (including Torah readings) and the secular calendar (the program differentiates between the Torah readings for Israel and abroad, when they differ); go into the holidays section and see a list of all the Jewish holidays (including Israels Independence Day, Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Day, fast days and days when Yizkor is recited), in the year of your choice.

When a holiday occurs in that month, click to get a short explanation, in English, of its tradition and meaning. Rosh Hodesh is easy to track, as are special days to you and your family.

If you live in the Diaspora, the program will mark the extra festival days and other observances that are added to the calendar followed in Israel. It even tells you when birthdays or yahrzeits are marked in a Jewish leap year: the former are celebrated in the happier month, Adar II, while the latter are remembered in Adar I.

Other convenient features include a mini-window on the screen called Quickdate, the ability to export data to files used by a word processor or database, creating notes and printing out whatever you want on paper.

Another company now sells a digital wristwatch that provides the current Hebrew date and a few zmanim. While Jewish Time is excellent as a computer program, the next step by some entrepreneur should be to produce a hand-held device the size of a calculator that contains all the information in the diskette.



Independent Review in CAJE Jewish Education News (1/1/1999) wrote:


Trying to plan ahead? Maybe you need to know when the Hebrew holidays fall
in the year 2001 or you have to identify the Torah/Haftarah portion for a
particular Shabbat in 2002. Thanks to Torah Educational Software's Jewish
Time, getting Jewish time-related information takes only a few mouse clicks.

This convenient interactive Jewish calendar instantly identifies Common
era dates from 1600 to 2200 and Hebrew dates from 5360-5960. It allows you to
convert from one calendar system to another, keep track of holidays and
the Omer count, plus pinpoint times for sunrise, sunset, Shabbat candle
lighting and Shabbat ending. You can personalize the calendar for up to 9 users. To
ensure that times are correct for each user, you simply choose the user's
"Location" from a database of towns and cities or enter longitude and
latitude values if a city isn't in the database. In addition, Jewish Time
preferences may be configured for observances in either Israel or the
Diaspora.

Other program features allow you to view Common era and Hebrew date
calendars side-by-side, complete with Rosh Hodesh and Jewish holiday
information on the Common Era calendar. You can click a date on one
calendar and watch the program display the corresponding date on the other [See
Calendar.PCX]. If you click the program's Holidays tab, then enter a Hebrew or
Common era year, Jewish Time displays a printable list of all Jewish
holidays for that year. It will track Yahrzeit dates, birthdays, and
anniversaries, keep a list of personal reminders, and export a list of
date equivalencies for a selected range of months. Finally, Jewish Time offers
support for 25 zmanim (halachic times) including minha gedola, shma, dawn
(alot Hashachar), midday/night (chatzot), and dusk.

If you already have a Hebrew calendar program (e.g., Davka's Zmanim), you
don't need another. On the other hand, if knowing your place in Hebrew
time and space is important and your desktop lacks an interactive Hebrew
calendar program, there's no time like Jewish Time.