Rethinking Religious Holidays at Grace
I’d like to start by saying that Grace Church School has been very accommodating to me as a Jewish student and to other Jews in our community. Despite our school’s history with the Episcopal Church, we are not a parochial school and are a “multi-religious…institution.”
I write this in the spirit of our progressive and accepting policy as a slight criticism of its implementation and not of the institution or the philosophy behind it. I have nothing but love for my school and our community, and I want to make it better.
On Monday October 3, 2016 (in the Hebrew calendar the 1st of Tishrei 5777) I was out of school because it was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Like most Jewish holy days, Rosh Hashanah starts at sundown and is followed by a service (usually around 8:00pm). For reform Jews this can stretch into 10:00pm. For Orthodox and Conservative Jews Rosh Hashanah services can last four or five hours. The high holy day continues in the morning, with a service at 10:00am, lasting for a equal or greater time than the night service, preventing one from either doing homework the night before or attending school during the day. For middle and lower schoolers this isn’t a great burden as homework is limited and class is slower. However for high schoolers this is hugely problematic.
Put simply even though I spent the day at home, unable to properly celebrate even the most reduced version of a 3,000-year-old tradition. I missed a test, a quiz and an in-class work session. These together with the homework I was unable to complete over the weekend left me inundated with work. I had to skip the morning service, which contained my aged rabbi’s farewell to his congregation. I spent the entirety of our holiday lunch fighting to catch up with work, costing me precious time that could have been spent with my 82-year-old grandmother, 88-year-old great aunt and 87-year-old grandfather, all of whom had flown up from Florida just for the occasion. All of this because Grace Church School does not give Rosh Hashanah off.
This alone is reason enough for the policy to change.
In all multi religious institutions accommodations are extended to people of many faiths. As reason commands there are restrictions to which religious holidays are given off. For Grace the criteria is “solemn fast days,” meaning days of both reverence and dietary restriction.
This policy has lead to Yom Kippur, the second of our most important holidays, to be a day off, but not the most important holiday, Rosh Hashanah. Together these form the “Days of Awe” or the “High Holy Days.” Between them are the 10 days of atonement, a time of “growing and self understanding” when we as Jews try to right the wrongs of the previous year. The two stand together as the most important days of the Jewish year, a time when even the least religious Jew takes time off to go to Synagogue.
Giving one day off and not the other is like a PB and J without jelly–it’s just strange and bucks a near-universal precedent.
When questioned about this decision, Head of School Mr. Davison responded, “We can’t close school for every religion’s days of obligation because then you’d have to close for the Seventh Day Adventists…for the Jews…Sikhs…Hindus…and for the Catholics.” This thinking, and the school’s policy, is misguided for two reasons.
First, it fails to take into account that not all solemn days are created equal. There are a total of six Jewish solemn fast days, including Yom Kippur and Tisha B’va. Under the school’s policy, all six of these would be given off. However, we don’t get time off for them because five of these holidays were deemed less important. Yom Kippur is the exception. Therefore the policy is not as simple as “solemn holiday + fast” (we’d have five more days off were that the case), and really comes down to relative importance.
We see this policy of relative importance already at work with Christmas. Christmas is not a fast day, but is still given off. It gets its time off because it is the most important Christian holy day. If this same discretion was extended to Rosh Hashanah, it would rightfully become a day off as well.
Secondly, the assumption that giving any more religious holidays off would lead to an avalanche of missing school days is just not true. There is a reason that we have a single Jewish holiday off and no Hindu, Muslim or Seventh Day Adventists holidays off: because Grace has very few students of these faiths. This would not change if my suggestion was adopted.
Jews make up a large percentage of the Grace Community. While it may sound self serving, a larger group logically should get due consideration. We deserve our Holy Days off because there are simply more of us. If Sikhs or Muslims or Seventh Day Adventists made up a large percentage of our student body they would likewise deserve their most important holidays off as well.
Among non-parochial schools Grace stands nearly alone. At most other “multireligious, multiethnic” independent schools, time off for Rosh Hashanah as well Yom Kippur is standard. Dalton, Friends Seminary and Little Red all give one day off. Fieldston, Horace Mann, Riverdale and even Avenues give a full two days off for the Jewish New Year. This has effectively split up my family; my two siblings both enjoy a day or two off and little to no homework, while I’m forced to skip a day of school and spend all day making up work, effectively separating myself from my family.
Keep in mind that even public schools give time of for both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Additionally, with their large Muslim and ethnic Chinese communities, city-run schools give time off for respective Chinese and Muslim holidays.
For the above reasons I call for a new four-point policy for holidays at Grace Church School, one that is more logical, more inclusive and more in line with what other schools around the city already do. Grace should decide whether to give a holiday off based on answers to the following four questions:
- Does your religious/ethnic group represent a significant (maybe around 10%) proportion of the student body, faculty and staff?
- What are your two or three most important holidays?
- What sacrifices are required by observance (i.e., church or synagogue services or fasting).
- What is the policy of peer schools?
Asking these questions is a simple and effective way to prepare for future demographic shifts. I hope this four-point policy becomes school standard by the time Rosh Hashanah rolls around next year.
Shana Tova and a blessed 5777.
Well said!
When I was a student at Grace in the 1970s, I was one of a handful of Jewish students, and I remember my mother having to write notes to my teachers to excuse me from school. Grace has evolved in so many ways since then and now serves a much more diverse student body — and certainly the population of Jewish families has increased significantly. I was therefore surprised to learn that I would have to do the same thing for my daughter, currently a high school student — and even more surprised that she would have to make up a test the next day. Granting one day off for Rosh Hashanah would be a considerate and fair solution to the issue that Marc Loeb has so eloquently raised.