Yahrzeits
Yahrzeits for Salesforce converts dates of people’s death between the Hebrew and Gregorian calendars and automatically keeps the Gregorian date of their next Yahrzeit up to date within Salesforce.
Dates of people’s passing can be entered as a Gregorian date, a Hebrew date (transliterated) or a Hebrew date in Hebrew.
A fully automated solution. Once installed, yahrzeits update nightly so the Next Yahrzeit date on the Gregorian (western) calendar is always accurate.
Geared to the needs of Jewish communities, synagogues and cemeteries using Salesforce, our solution automates the process of keeping yahrzeits current for the deceased loved ones of their congregation. Instead of requiring synagogue staff to use books or search the web, we’ve made it a fully automated process using REST APIs provided by HebCal.com.
The Salesforce installer can be found here
As a (free) open-source package, you can find the source code on GitHub
Yahrzeits?
A yahrzeit is the anniversary of a person’s death. In Judaism people tend to track anniversaries of their loved-one’s deaths using the Hebrew calendar. Not surprisingly, accurately tracking yahrzeits is a fundamental need of Jewish communities around the world.
The Hebrew Calendar
The calendar typically used for business as well as most dates we think of, such as January 1, 2020, are marked on the Gregorian calendar. Introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in October 1582, the Gregorian calendar is rooted in the Earth’s movement around the Sun.
The Hebrew calendar, however, is rooted in the moon’s movements around the Earth. Thus the Gregorian counterparts of Hebrew dates can vary widely from year to year. The example below demonstrates this variability. It presumes a person died on June 1 of each year since 2000. Along with each is the corresponding date on the Hebrew calendar; and when that Hebrew date falls in the year 2000 (their next Yahrzeit). A quick review of the right column shows the dates range between May 17th and June 15th.
Our Solution
Geared to the needs of synagogues using Salesforce, our solution automates the process of keeping yahrzeits current for the deceased family members of their congregation. Instead of requiring synagogue staff to use books or search the web, we’ve made it a fully automated process using REST APIs provided by HebCal.com.
Installation
Geared to the needs of synagogues using Salesforce, our solution automates the process of keeping yahrzeits current for the deceased family members of their congregation. Instead of requiring synagogue staff to use books or search the web, we’ve made it a fully automated process using REST APIs provided by HebCal.com.
- Install the package.
When prompted – select Install for All Users, and grant access to use HebCal.com, which is needed to perform date conversions.
- Add the package fields to your contact page layouts by going to Setup > Object Manager > Contact > Page Layouts.
Below is a suggestion of how you might organize the fields on screen. Note that only the Date of Death and Time of Death fields are typically entered by the user. The rest are automatically updated for you by the system.
- 3. Like when installing any package, it’s always good to verify that Field-Level Security is set to match your needs for the newly added fields, listed below.
Objects and Fields
Contact
All of the needed information is stored in the contact object.
| Field Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Date of Death | Date | The Gregorian date of a person’s death. Being a Salesforce date field the year is required. It works equally well for orgs using either the US (mm/dd/yyyy) or international (dd/mm/yyyy) date localization. |
| Time of Death | Picklist | Identifies whether a person died before or after sunset. This is important because days in the Hebrew calendar begin at sundown. If left blank, the system assumes they died before sundown. |
| Date of Death (Hebrew) | Text | The Hebrew date of a person’s death. If you choose to manually enter a Hebrew date they’re stored in the format dd mm yyyy. For example, 12 Tevet 5780. If the year is not known, it can be entered simply as 12 Tevet. Note: You should enter either the Gregorian or Hebrew date, but not both. |
| Date of Death Abbrev. (Hebrew) | Formula (text) | Show’s the Hebrew date of a person’s death with the year removed, for use in mail merges, etc. For example, this shows as 12 Tevet if the Hebrew date of death is set to 12 Tevet 5780 or just 12 Tevet. |
| Next Yahrzeit | Date | The Gregorian date that corresponds to the next occurrence of the Hebrew date of death. |
| Next Yahrzeit (Formal) | Text | A more pleasing presentation of the next yahrzeit date. For example, 3/16/2020 shows as March 16th. This is done for mail-merges, etc. |
| Next Gregorian Anniversary of Death | Date | This shows the next occurrence of the Gregorian date of death, regardless of Hebrew dates. If someone died on Jan 1, 2020, this will show as Jan 1, 2021. |
| Formula (number) | Date | The person’s age. It’s calculated based on their birthdate field and aware of their date of death. Once a person dies, it will always show their age at death. |
| Date of Birth (Hebrew) | Text | The Hebrew date of the person’s birth. |
| Time of Death | Picklist | Identifies whether a person was born before or after sunset. |
Yahrzeit Errors (YahrzeitError__c)
Yahrzeit Errors is used to track when conversion errors occur. Administrators will only need to review data in this object when debugging problems with our support team.
Usage
The system is amazingly easy to use. Just enter the date of death for any contact in your database and the system will automatically update their information.
Entering a Gregorian Date of Death
Let’s say a person in your passed away on January 1st 2020. Enter that as their Date of Death and use the Time of Death field to note that is was before sunset. Once you refresh the page the system will show that the Hebrew date of their passing is 4, Tevet 5780, and that their next yahrzeit will be on Dec 19, 2020.
Entering a Hebrew Date of Death
If you know a person’s Hebrew Date of Death, you can enter that in the Date of Death (Hebrew) field. The format used, is Day, Month Year. So if a person passed on 12 Av 5760, the system would automatically calculate their Gregorian date of death as August 13th, 2000 and their next yahrzeit being August 2, 2020.
While years are required when entering Gregorian dates, they’re not needed when entering yahrzeits as Hebrew dates. If a person is known to have died on the 20th of Tishrei, the system accurately shows they’ll have a yahrzeit on October 8, 2020. However, the Gregorian date of their passing can’t be determined without knowing the Hebrew year of their death.
Nightly Updates
Early in the morning of the day after each yahrzeit passes, the system automatically updates it to reflect the following yahrzeit. Let’s say someone died on January 1, 2020. Their Hebrew date of death is 4 Tevet and their next yahrzeit falls on December 19, 2020. Early in the morning of December 20, 2020, the system will update their next yahrzeit to December 8th 2021.
Once a date of death is entered yahrzeits are kept up to date; forever.
Hebrew Months
If you choose to enter the Hebrew dates of yahrzeits, the following spellings are supported:
| Month | Supported Transliterations | Hebrew |
|---|---|---|
| Nisan | Nisan, Nissan | ניסן |
| Iyar | Iyar, Iyyar | אייר |
| Sivan | Sivan | סיון |
| Tamuz | Tamuz, Tammuz | תמוז |
| Av | Av | אב |
| Elul | Elul | אלול |
| Tishrei | Tishrei | תשרי |
| Cheshvan | Cheshvan, Chesvan, Kheshvan | חשון |
| Kislev | Kislev | כסלן |
| Tevet | Tevet, Teves | טבמ |
| Shevat | Shevat, Shvat, Sh’vat | שבט |
| Adar | Adar, Adar I, Adar 1, Adar1, Adar A | אדר |
| Adar II | Adar II, Adar 2, Adar2, Adar B | אדר ב |
FAQs
Q: What happens once the Gregorian yahrzeit date has passed?
A: The night after each yahrzeit passes, it’s updated to show the next one. Let’s say someone died on January 1, 2020. Their Hebrew date of death is 4 Tevet and their next yahrzeit falls on December 19, 2020. Early in the morning of December 20, 2020, the system will update their next yahrzeit to December 8th 2021.
Q: We are not located in the US. Does it support our Gregorian date format?
A: Yes. Salesforce understands Gregorian dates entered as typical for your locale. The 21st day of March of 2020 is entered as 3/21/2020 in the US, and entered as 21/3/2020 in most of the rest of the world. This is actually a function of Salesforce rather than the yahrzeit module.
Q: Can we enter the Hebrew dates of yahrzeits in Hebrew?
A: Yes. They can be entered in Hebrew or any of the accepted transliterations listed above.
Q: Do we need to enter both the Gregorian and Hebrew dates of people’s deaths?
A: No. Enter either the Gregorian or the Hebrew date of the death. The system will take care of the rest.
Q: We already track the dates people died, how do we calculate yahrzeits?
A: The package includes a field called Date of Death (date_of_death__c). Copy each person’s date of death from your field into this one, add the Time of Death (time_of_death__c) if you know hit and it’ll work fine.
Q: We have congregants who know the Hebrew date when their loved ones died, but not the year. What do we do?
A: You can enter a Hebrew date without a year, such as 12 Av. The system will then keep the yahrzeits up to date; though it can’t determine the Gregorian date of death without the Hebrew year.
Q: Some of our congregants prefer the to track yahrzeits on the Gregorian calendar. Do you support that?
A: Yes, the field called Next Gregorian Anniversary of Death is just for that purpose.
Q: How are you converting the dates? Can we trust the results?
A: The date conversions are done using HebCal.com which is the most trusted source for conversions on the web. The magic we add is all about making it work with Salesforce.
Q: Why do I need adjust my Remote Site Settings?
A: The Remote Site Settings tell Salesforce it’s ok to talk to HebCal.com.
Q: Is the system really as “set and forget” as it appears?
A: Yes, that was the intention. Converting dates shouldn’t be hard so we’ve made it easy.