BS”D

SHUVOO NEWSLETTER

Issue No. 38 – December 31^st, 2007

“SLYVESTER”

(New Years Eve in Israel)

An advertisement from a recent issue of a Jerusalem newspaper.

Tonight, the majority of world will celebrate, with gusto, the outgoing of 2007 and the incoming of the year 2008.  Here in Israel, we do not celebrate New Years at this time of the year.  The “New Year” is celebrated on Rosh Hoshanah, the 1^st day of the seventh month of Tishri during early autumn.  Rosh Hoshanah commemorates the birthday of Adam at the time of Creation, the day upon which HaKadosh Baruch Hu sits in judgment of mankind.  The day also marks the numbering of the new civic year, the Sabbatical years and the Jubilee years in the Jewish calendar.  This past Rosh Hashanah the year changed from 5767 (corresponding roughly to the Gregorian year 2007) to 5768.  Rosh Hashanah is actually one of several “new years” that Jews celebrate.  Pesach (Passover) falls during the month of Aviv.  The first day of Aviv is decreed by Torah to be the first of the months (see Exodus 12:1).  It begins a new annual cycle of Hashem’s festivals and the months of the Jewish calendar are numbering beginning with Aviv.  Tu b’Shvat (the 15^th of the month of Shvat, usually occuring in February or March) marks the beginning of a new year for the trees, when the potential for fruit bearing within them is at its highest.  The new year for the tithe of animals is set for the 1^st day of Elul, the sixth month of the calendar year, a month devoted to self-introspection and teshuvah (repentance) in advance of Rosh Hoshanah.  But let us return to the “New Year” at hand. 

“New Years Eve” is not celebrated in Israel.  Surprised?  In Jerusalem, a few restaurants have advertised New Years menus and celebrations, and there were quite a few more in Tel Aviv, but by and large, it is simply another evening.   Perhaps you are asking yourself, “Why would such a ‘global event’ be downplayed so in Israel?” 

To be truthful, New Years Eve is known by a different moniker here in Israel.  The evening of December 31^st is referred to as “Slyvester.”  To learn why, one needs go back in history.

New Years Day was first instituted by Julius Caesar in 46 BCE.  The day was associated with the god Janus, the Roman god of doors and gates who had two faces, one forward, one back.  Caesar felt Janus was an appropriate god to honor with the proclamation of a new civic year and named the “first of months” January to honor the Roman diety.  As is evident, the name stuck.  Even from such ancient times, the day was heralded the evening before with social frolicking both “proper” and “improper”, depending on one’s perspective.  

During the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine, the head of the pre- and early Christian church was a man by the name of Sylvester.  Sylvester led the early Church from 314 until his death on December 31, 335 CE.  Slyvester is accredited with “converting” Constantine to the Christian religion and baptizing him.  Emperor Constantine would later officially constitute Christianity and declare it to be the State religion of Roman Empire headed by the Roman Catholic Church.  This occurred at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE. 

Slyvester was obviously influential in the life of Emperor Constantine, but how much so?

The year before the Council of Nicaea convened, Sylvester convinced Constantine to ban Jews from living in Jerusalem, resulting in forced evacuations and persecution.  Not a good year for the Jews.

Various sources claim that numerous Jewish “bishops” were still involved in the leadership of the early Christian faith, even at the time of Constantine and Slyvester.  After all, was it not the Jewish followers of one particular Jew who had started the religious movement in the first place?  Apparently it was time for a change, at least in Slyvester’s mind.  He insured that none of the Jewish bishops would be present at the Council of Nicaea.  At the same time, he arranged for the passage of a host of viciously anti-Semitic legislation to be included in the founding principles of the Christian church.  Slyvester continued as Pope of the early Church until his death ten years later.  The Catholic Church bestowed sainthood upon Pope Sylvester posthumously and December 31 was declared Saint Sylvester’s Day.  The celebrations on the night of December 31 are dedicated to the veneration of Sylvester's memory. 

There will be a few glasses of bubbly consumed at New Years and Slyvester parties in clubs and restaurants in Israel tonight, but they will be in the minority.  Is it any wonder?

Ashirah Yosefah

Ad Matai / Shuvoo

Jerusalem

Israel Registration #580545870

www.shuvoo.com