Template
Yahrzeit Card Template
In Jewish memory, the work of remembering does not end with the funeral. It returns every year on the yahrzeit, the anniversary of the death on the Hebrew calendar. A yahrzeit card is the small printed companion to that observance, carrying the name, the Hebrew date, and the words the family will need year after year.
Make it theirs
When your card is ready, download the print ready PDF. Print a few extra copies for the family itself, since the card that carries the Hebrew date is the one relatives will reach for every year when it is time to light the candle.
When the service is planned, their memory deserves a place that stays. Create their memorial page · free, forever.
What a yahrzeit is
Yahrzeit is a Yiddish word meaning the time of year. It is the anniversary of a death reckoned on the Hebrew calendar, and it is one of the most faithfully kept observances in Jewish life, marked even by families who observe little else.
Because the Hebrew calendar is lunar, the yahrzeit falls on a different Gregorian date each year. A death on the tenth of Nisan is remembered every tenth of Nisan, which might land in late March one year and mid April the next.
The central act of the day is simple. A yahrzeit candle, made to burn for about twenty four hours, is lit at sundown the evening before, since the Hebrew day begins at nightfall. Many also say Kaddish with a minyan, give tzedakah, or visit the grave. The candle in the dark kitchen, lit at sundown, is the image most Jewish families carry of this day.
Why the Hebrew date belongs on the card
This is the practical heart of a yahrzeit card. The Gregorian date of death is easy to remember and useless for the observance. What the family needs, every single year, is the Hebrew date, because that is the date the candle is lit and Kaddish is said.
A good yahrzeit card therefore carries both dates, the Gregorian date for the record and the Hebrew date for the practice. Many cards also include the person's Hebrew name, the name used when they are remembered in synagogue.
Funeral homes and synagogues often provide a yahrzeit calendar listing the Gregorian equivalent of the yahrzeit for the next ten or twenty years. If you are making your own card, you can note the Hebrew date prominently and let the synagogue's annual reminder do the rest. If you are unsure of the Hebrew date, any rabbi or synagogue office can convert it in a moment, and one detail matters, a death after sundown belongs to the next Hebrew day.
May their memory be a blessing
The phrase most often printed on Jewish memorial cards is the traditional one, May their memory be a blessing, or in Hebrew, zikhronah livrakhah for a woman and zikhrono livrakhah for a man. On headstones and in print it often appears as the abbreviation of the Hebrew phrase.
It is a different kind of sentence than the ones on other memorial cards. It does not speak of where the dead have gone. It hands the living a task, to remember in a way that blesses. That is very close to the whole of Jewish mourning in one line, and it is hard to improve on.
Alongside it, families often add a line of Psalms. The opening of Psalm 23, The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want, is as much at home in Jewish mourning as anywhere, and the psalm is traditionally recited in houses of mourning.
How practice varies, honestly
Jewish observance is not uniform, and a card should not pretend it is. Orthodox and Conservative families keep the yahrzeit strictly by the Hebrew date and will expect the card to lead with it. Some Reform families observe the anniversary on the Gregorian date instead, and their card may reasonably lead with that. Many families land in between, lighting the candle on whichever date the synagogue's reminder names.
There is variation in language too. Some families want Hebrew prominent on the card, some want transliteration, some want English only. None of these choices is wrong. The card should match the family's actual practice, not an imagined standard, and if the family is unsure, their rabbi is the right person to ask.
Shiva information cards, the related custom
Alongside the yahrzeit card there is a plainer, more immediate piece of printing, the shiva card. Shiva is the seven day mourning period that begins after burial, when the family receives visitors at home.
A shiva card is handed out at the funeral or shared by the synagogue, and it is pure information. The address where shiva is being observed, the days and hours when visitors are welcome, times for minyan at the house, and any notes such as where to send donations in lieu of flowers.
It is worth making both. The shiva card serves the first week, the yahrzeit card serves every year after. They can share a design, the same name and photograph, so that the family's printed remembrance feels of a piece.
Questions, answered plainly
When is the yahrzeit candle lit?
At sundown on the evening before the yahrzeit date, because the Hebrew day begins at nightfall. The candle is made to burn for about twenty four hours, through the whole of the day.
How do I find the Hebrew date of death?
Any synagogue office or rabbi can convert a Gregorian date in a moment, and online Hebrew calendar converters do the same. Note whether the death occurred after sundown, since a death after nightfall belongs to the next Hebrew day.
Do Jewish memorial cards include prayers the way Christian cards do?
Usually not in the same way. The most common texts are the phrase May their memory be a blessing and a line of Psalms, most often from Psalm 23. Kaddish is generally said in community rather than printed as a card devotion, though some families include a line of it.
What if our family is not very observant?
The yahrzeit is one of the most widely kept practices among otherwise secular Jews, and the card still serves. Include both dates, the phrase May their memory be a blessing, and the candle lighting time, and the card will do its quiet work every year.