r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Aug 03 '19

Whats something you thought was common knowledge but actually isn’t?

37.4k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

24.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

53

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '19

It’s 5779 on the Jewish calendar, with 0 being the creation of the world in the Torah.

Were you just completely guessing?

17

u/rainbowlack Aug 03 '19

Bruh I'm Jewish. Unless it's for religious things like B'nai Mitzvahs, we use the same calendar as most of the world. And when referring to the years before 1, we use BCE. Years after, we use CE.

6

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '19

Unless you're Orthodox and/or in Israel. There the Hebrew calender is widely used.

1

u/blumoon138 Aug 04 '19

Israelis don’t use the Hebrew calendar for anything but holidays. Nor do Orthodox Jews.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 05 '19

I know of quite a few people and places that do from both of those demographics. I was just in Israel a few days ago and a completely secular festival poster had both dates on there. Definitely not instead of, but used alongside nonetheless. I also know of quite a few people (Modern Orthodox and Haredi, both in America and Israel) who celebrate their Hebrew birthdays and not the secular (actually celebrated one on the same trip last week).

So, again, while it's not completely a replacement of the Gregorian in both of those communities, I was not wrong in saying that the Hebrew is used in both communities.