Now translated into 49 Jewish languages: the Jewish spring ritual of counting the Omer

There are 49 days between the second night of Passover and the holiday of Shavuot, but who’s counting?

Jews the world over, in fact, and in languages familiar and obscure.

The daily counting of the Omer is an old ritual being given new life this season by the Jewish Language Project at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. On each day of the seven-week period, the research group will post a version of the counting in a different vernacular Jewish language, from Ladino and Yiddish to less familiar languages like Judeo-Georgian and Judeo-Persian.

The multilingual Omer counter is a way to draw attention to Jewish linguistic diversity, revive interest in fading languages and celebrate the far-flung nature of the Jewish Diaspora.

“Because of migration, nationalist language policies, and genocide, a large percentage of the languages in our Omer counter are currently endangered,” write Sarah Bunin Benor, founding director of the Jewish Language Project, and Eden Moyal, its curator. Benor is a vice provost at HUC-JIR, and Moyal is a linguistics and anthropology major at UCLA.


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Normally, I wouldn't post a "religious" post here, but given the topic I felt it was on brand and it is really cool, too!