Minor Festivals (on which everyday work is allowed) are:

• Hanukah (the Festival of Lights) – occurring in December, celebrating the triumph of the Maccabees over the Greeks and their Syrian allies who sought to impose alien religious practice on the Jewish people in Judea.  An eight branch candelabra (a Hanukiah) is lit on eight evenings, starting with one light and ending with eight, marking the re-consecration of the Temple in Jerusalem.
• Purim (Lots) – celebrated in March, marking the release from genocide of the Jews living in ancient Persia in the time of King Ahasuerus.

Other minor festivals include:

• Rosh Chodesh (the first day of each of the twelve months in the Jewish solar calendar)
• Tisha b’Av (marking the destruction of Temples in Jerusalem and other catastrophes for the Jewish people)
• Tu b’Shvat (the new year for trees when it is customary to plant a sapling)
• Lag b’Omer (between Pesach and Shavuot)
• Yom Yerushalayim (the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967)
• Yom Hashoah (in remembrance of the mass murder of Jews during World War Two)
• Yom Haatzmaut (Israel Independence Day)