page_title: Bereavement in Judaism
section_title: Anniversary of death (Yahrtzeit)
hierarchical_section_title: Bereavement in Judaism / Annual remembrances / Anniversary of death (Yahrtzeit)
caption_attribution_description: English: A lit Yahrtzeit candle, a candle that is lit on the Hebrew anniversary of a loved one's death.
context_page_description: Bereavement in Judaism is a combination of minhag and mitzvah derived from Judaism's classical Torah and rabbinic texts. The details of observance and practice vary according to each Jewish community.
context_section_description: Yahrtzeit, יאָרצײַט, means "Time (of) Year" in Yiddish. Alternative spellings include yortsayt (using the YIVO standard Yiddish orthography), Jahrzeit (in German), Yohr Tzeit, yahrzeit, and yartzeit.  The word is used by Yiddish speaking Jews, and refers to the anniversary, according to the Hebrew calendar, of the day of death of a relative. Yahrtzeit literally means "time of [one] year".
  Non-Ashkenazi communities use other names for the anniversary of a death. The commemoration is known in Hebrew as nachala ("legacy," or "inheritance"). This term is used by most Sephardi Jews, although some use the Ladino terms meldado or less commonly, anyos ("years"). Persian Jews refer to this day as "saal", which is simply the Persian word for "year".
caption: A yahrtzeit candle lit in memory of a loved one on the anniversary of the death
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A710 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2007:07:08 22:01:39", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5108", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "2777", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:07:08 22:01:39", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:07:08 22:01:39", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "189/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, auto mode, red-eye reduction mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "26749/1000", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3072", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2304", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "3072", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2304", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3080", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "40960/3", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "2304000/169", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}