Jews and muslims around the world celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Ramadan but this week, the New York Department of Education has shut down the school system in recognition of both.
The city’s public relations machine faces a cultural stigma against muslims. Some New Yorkers are still angry that Muslim terrorists took down the World Trade Center, plunging NY into a never-ending wake without the booze. A group calling themselves Stop the Madrassa protested against the opening of the Kahlil Gibran International Academy last month and activists clamored for the removal of principal-designate Dhabah Almontaser after she voiced her support of the slogan “Intifadeh NYC” on girls’ tee-shirts.
Now, the Department of Education is recognizing Ramadan as a holiday on par with Rosh Hashanah. Where did that come from?
More than a quarter of the world’s 1 billion muslims live in New York City. An estimated 600,000 work and worship in the city. Many send their children to public schools.
Though muslim students make up about 12 percent of the city’s 1.1 million public school students, the city has traditionally avoided closing schools to commemorate the holiest days in the Islamic calendar: Ramadan, which marks the Prophet Muhammad’s flight from Mecca and the revelation of the Quran; Eid-Ul-Fitr at the end of Ramadan; and Eid-Ul-Adha, the “festival of sacrifice” in which muslims remember how the biblical patriarch Abraham showed his willingness to sacrifice his son, Isaac for God.
The city acommodates students of Jewish and Catholic backgrounds, but muslim students have to make a special request to celebrate their holidays. Many muslim students who take the days off risk falling behind on homework and exams.
Like Jewish holidays, Ramadan floats through the seasons because of the lunar calendar. Sometimes Ramadan is celebrated in January as it did the last time I was in the Middle East, fat and happy while my guide fasted. This year it comes just after faithful Jews around the world rang in 5769 of the Jewish calendar.
Muslim groups continue to make a case for religious equality in city schools, but Joe Klein, Chancellor of the New York Department of Education, remains silent on the subject.
For today, the kids are free to celebrate as they will. Politics aside, everyone loves a holiday.
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