Comments on: Sylvester Sameach!

By: Aharon

Aharon — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:00:52 +0000

Pope Sylvester II and Pope Sylvester III are believed to be of Jewish background. Sylvester III was Elhanan Crescens (John) the son of Rabbi Simeon the Great of Mainz of the Kalonymus family.

By: Sylvester « Gefilte Fish Out of Water

Sylvester « Gefilte Fish Out of Water — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 09:28:44 +0000

[...] the eff is this Sylvester guy anyway? Not such a cool guy for the Jews, actually. He was a Roman pope in the fourth [...]

By: Happy… Sylvester? | Considerations by Samuel J. Scott

Happy… Sylvester? | Considerations by Samuel J. Scott — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 09:02:31 +0000

[...] Jewlicious, and Ynet look at the holiday as well, each in its own, different way. As the Wikipedia [...]

By: Ari

Ari — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 03:35:47 +0000

Did no one point out that it comes from all of the Yiddish speaking immigrants?

By: Andrea

Andrea — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 23:29:42 +0000

In Israel, restaurants will lose their Kashrut license if they advertise that they are putting on new year’s parties so they instead celebrate Sylvester. Really, most Israelis don’t even know the meaning of Sylvester – it just gives them a way to celebrate the changing of the Gregorian calendar’s new year just like everyone else in the world.

By: Laurence Lee Duman

Laurence Lee Duman — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 08:26:56 +0000

I attended an ulpan on Kibbutz Sdot Yam back in 1985.When the 25th.Dec came around, I borrowed a very large red night dress and some cotton wool and distributed presents to the volunteers.
When I asked a kibbutz member why they refered to this holiday as “Sylvestor” I was told it was the name of one of the cruelest Pogrom initiators in Russia.He had long white hair and a beard and dressed in red to intimidate the folk in the villages they terrorized.
Mind you, the guy that told me had been hitting the Shabbat wine pretty heavily that evening.

By: joe

joe — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 06:03:02 +0000

2 years after i read this, i really hope that you have now seen the light and understand you were wrong.

By: Fruits and Votes » Blog Archive » 2007 Israeli Non-Resolution: An electoral reform proposal

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 21:06:16 +0000

[...] In any event, albeit a bit late: Sylvester Sameach! [...]

By: Alan

Alan — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 18:50:46 +0000

Wow. what a conversation. Israelis call it “Sylvester” because many Europeans call New Years “Sylvester”, because that happens to be the name of the Catholic saint attached to the day. (They’ve got a saint for every day, if you didn’t know).
New Years isn’t a celebration of Saint Sylvester (just ask those Europeans who started calling it that!), it’s a celebration of the end/begining of the year.
Such rubbish.
And yeah, putting scare quotes around other people’s saints and town names is obnoxious and ridiculous.

By: Netsach Shebe Netsach

Netsach Shebe Netsach — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 22:55:26 +0000

I thought I saw a puddy cat…..
I did
I did
There you are Slyvestor!

By: Shawn

Shawn — Mon, 02 Jan 2006 04:10:41 +0000

Laya, of course you’re right. I guess I would have looked for another “source”

By: SnoopyTheGoon

SnoopyTheGoon — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 14:48:05 +0000

Who cares when that Sylvester guy croaked or was born (if at all). It is just a point on the time axis when one has a reason to get sloshed. A person cannot have too many of these reasons!

By: josh

josh — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 09:51:55 +0000

Man, I totally forgot. I think I was in the shower.

My guess is that some ‘smart religious types’ tried to scare Israelis away from this goyish party and dug up this Sylvester loser to deride the event. No one has ever been able to tell me what other country celebrates new years as ‘Sylvester’. Well, little did they know that the word ‘Sylvester’ has quite a catchy tune to it. I think it even sounds ‘fun’.

Anyway, I would never tell someone not to celebrate ‘Sylvester’. I’d just tell them that New Years is not Jewish, period. Don’t know how many people wil buy that, it took me a while to see the light.

By: Palma

Palma — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 23:43:43 +0000

that is very true. We hungarian after the Pope sylvestor we call the day of 31 dec Szilveszter(sylvestor} and the celebrations we call szilveszter.

By: s

Sat, 31 Dec 2005 23:29:54 +0000

nevermind, he died on december 31st. so i guess we are celebrating his death. right?

By: s

Sat, 31 Dec 2005 23:28:33 +0000

I thought saint sylvestor died on the 1st of january.

By: laya

laya — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 22:41:19 +0000

shawn, thats a quote, in block quotes, taken directly from another source which is linked to. So feel free to take umbrage with simpletoremember.com, as I often do.

By: ck

ck — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 22:05:56 +0000

Woohoo! Happy New Years from Ravit’s place in Arnona, Jerusalem!

By: Shawn

Shawn — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 20:02:46 +0000

Good point, but why put the word "saint" in quotation marks, even as you capitalize the word? I understand the idea of "Saint" Sylvester", who seems to have been no saint, but why the phrase All Catholic "Saints"? That just seems petty. Right up there with Chabad calling half the towns in California S. Francisco, S. Monica, etc., instead of San Francisco or Santa Monica. Besides, a good number of Catholic saints probably were tzaddikim as we understand the word. Even if there were some Judaic justification for this, the last thing we need is people calling us "Jews" or referring to our religious authorities as "rabbis" (oh, wait - the ultraorthodox already do that to their "heterodox" brethren).

By: EV

EV — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 18:38:53 +0000

I’m guessing they borrowed it from Europe, as “Sylvester” is the common term for New Year’s Eve there. But yeah, it’s odd that they haven’t come up with a Hebrew term w/o anti-Semitic roots for the festivities.