Saturday Classes Interfere With Passover Celebrations
Exeter’s Jewish community said that they felt the classes held on Saturday, April 23 interfered with their celebration of Passover.
The classes were scheduled to compensate for cancelled classes during the final strategic planning meeting the previous Wednesday.
Passover is a week-long holiday that celebrates the liberation in around 1300 BCE of the Jewish people in Egypt. The holiday began last Friday and ends this Saturday. During the holiday, Jews refrain from eating any leavened food with yeast in it in addition to several other dietary restrictions in honor of the celebration.
“It’s allowed to miss classes for religious observances.”
It was interrupted on its first full day due to the scheduled classes.
Many students in the Exeter Jewish Community (EJC) had mixed reactions, ranging from acceptance to strong discontent.
Reverend Robert Thompson explained the challenges students face when prioritizing religion and academics.
Although students could be excused from classes in order to observe the holiday, the extra workload would only discourage missing class. He described the situation as “ironic,” emphasizing that in the minimal amount of Saturday classes at the school, there are other weekends available besides an annual tradition.
“There are lots of other Saturdays that are not holidays, so it’s really a problem. Though [students] can miss classes for religious observances, they’re not always willing to do it because ‘Exonians are supposed to go to class—it’s what Exonians do.’ It puts a lot of pressure on them that I don’t think is really fair,” he said.
Upper and co-head of EJC Antigone Clark was upset that she had to go to classes rather than observe Passover. “I’m actually really upset about the whole thing. Passover is a major religious holiday for the Jews and if Easter was on a Saturday—you know that they wouldn’t have to go to classes. It’s really frustrating.”
Clark and a few other EJC co-heads organized a religious study on Saturday morning for Jewish students to attend rather than class but explained that she still wasn’t exempt from classes. “I actually still have to go to one of my classes, because otherwise, I’ll be completely screwed over for Monday.”
Senior and co-head of EJC Charlie Russ agreed with Clark’s disappointment. “It seems to me like the school didn’t take into consideration Jewish holidays when they plan the events. I don’t think this would happen to a Christian. I know we’re a minority, but it inconveniences our Exeter Jewish community.”
Lower and EJC member Milena Deguere explained that some students’ academic stress caused them to leave religious ceremonies early. “I had a couple of friends who, when realizing the Seder would take an hour and a half, left before it began because they had to study for tests the next day. They missed this entire, great experience because of Saturday classes,” she said.
Lower Emily Green, a non-Jewish member of EJC, did not observe Passover, but still felt that the Jewish community deserved the day off.
“I agree that there should not be [Saturday] classes during Passover. It’s a very important religious holiday for a lot of people at our school, and frankly, I think that having Saturday classes during Passover is kind of disrespectful and also really inconvenient to the people celebrating it.”
On the other hand, senior and co-head of EJC Sam Kushell did not feel that Saturday classes had a large effect on Passover.
“It actually starts on Friday night, and it’s more about the feast, the Seder, that we have. Also, this is a holiday that lasts for about a week, so we have to go to classes the whole time, and it’s not something that’s impeded by that fact [Saturday classes].”
Lower and co-head of EJC Noah Asch was disappointed that he would have to attend classes on Saturday, but he also acknowledged that there are numerous holidays and that it would be unreasonable to have a day off for each one. “There’s around sixteen [Jewish holidays], and I feel having a day off for every one of those holidays would be a bit excessive.”
Lower Billy O’Handley felt similarly about the Saturday classes.
“I didn’t really care too much. It wasn’t too bad because there are a ton of classes on the Sabbath anyways. It felt no different from that—but I certainly would have liked it to be a no class day to celebrate the holiday without academics getting in the way.”
Thompson recognized that circumstances and scheduling issues are sometimes unavoidable when coordinating the school’s calendar.
“There have been times when we had classes on Good Friday and Easter Monday, both of which are days I would have preferred to take off and have as holy days for my own observance, so it’s not that the school is hostile to Judaism as much as it is indifferent to any other scheduling than what it wants to do,” he said.
Before the calendar for the academic year is published, faculty review the schedule to catch situations such as overlapping holidays and Saturday classes.
However, Rabbi Marx-Asch and Thompson did not find this conflict. “The school is pretty agnostic about who gets bothered by the schedule … Neither Rabbi nor I caught this, and I will say that it’s my responsibility.”
Thompson continued, “Had I caught it, there may have been something that I could have done—but even so, I’m not completely sure that there was something that could have been done.”
Thompson added that students remain aware of the support that the faculty can provide. “I’m not always aware of how difficult it is for an individual student to take advantage of this supportive option that they have.” he said. “It’s allowed to miss classes for religious observances, and I will support them in whatever I need to do and so will Rabbi.”