Jerusalem Dispatch: Israel This Week

May 16 – 22, 2026

A Very Dairy Holiday

This coming Sunday Christians across the world celebrate Pentecost. You know the story. What you might not know is the direct connection between Pentecost and the holiday Jews began celebrating last night, on Thursday evening.

As the sun sat yesterday, something happened all across Israel that every believer who loves Israel will find very interesting, and very meaningful.

Jewish families decorated their homes and synagogues with greenery and flowers. And they began a two day feast of dairy: cheesecakes, blintzes, cheese-filled pastries.

Why? They are celebrating the moment God spoke — out loud, from a mountain — to an entire nation of people. They eat dairy because His Word is like milk and honey, sweetness and life to the soul.

And in many congregations, they read the story about a Gentile woman who left everything to follow the God of Israel, was redeemed by her Jewish fiance, and became the great grandmother of King David …and of Yeshua, the Redeemer Himself.

The holiday is called Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks. It happens fifty days after Passover. Fifty days—pentēkostē in Greek. Sound familiar?

Shavuot and Pentecost are the same day. They always have been.