PERFECT ATTENDANCE
Sat., August 28, 04:48 PM
After all this time, I clearly remember when I learned that “perfect attendance” was a goal to be attained. I was in first grade. On the last day of school, one little boy had not missed school all year, and much fuss was made over him. Even the principal came to our class and shook his hand. I can still hear Mr. Freeman saying, “Congratulations, James!”
Within a year or two I knew that I would never be in that position. Every September we would be out for at least one day, usually for three. The Jewish High Holy Days, from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur, were days when we absolutely would not be in school.
The Christian kids didn’t understand it. “Why can’t they just go to church before school, like we do on Holy Days of Obligation?” I doubt that our WASP teachers understood it either. For one thing, we do not conduct business — carry money or write, for example. The Orthodox Jews don’t ride on those days either. In addition, a Jewish holiday service is not just a half hour visit. It could last four or five hours; we were expected to be present even if we did not spend the entire time in the sanctuary. (Yom Kippur, incidentally, is all day.)
What didn’t make sense to us, not that we were going to complain, was that Good Friday is always a school holiday for everyone. It was just part of the way we lived. Fortunately, most of us did not suffer from missing those days of school, being pretty good students to begin with.
I should mention that non-observant Jews usually stay out of school or work on those days too, even if they have no intention of attending synagogue. Call it a mark of respect or support for their more religious colleagues. As I had to explain to one employer, it is illegal to require a Jewish person to work on the High Holidays, although sometimes people in emergency services are needed, holiday or not. (They didn’t have to pay us — usually we used vacation days — but they could not refuse us the days off.)
As we grew older, we did notice some changes. New York City was the first place I remember declaring school holidays; but by that time such a large percentage of New York teachers were Jewish that they never would find enough substitutes. Similarly, a member of our congregation was elected to the school board and managed to change the calendar to allow school closings. It didn’t hurt, of course, when high profile celebrities like Sammy Davis, Jr., and Sandy Koufax refused to work on Yom Kippur.
We are not asking for extra days off, you understand. When I was the person in charge of such things, I gave our people the choice of either Yom Kippur or Good Friday. Well, that was in a small company where flexibility was the key; I often worked Sundays to make up for being away some other time, not that anyone was counting. When we grew large enough to have a vice president of administration, I teased him that it’s always difficult to hire Jewish secretaries, because you have to give them the holidays.
What it boils down to, I think, is mutual respect. It took a very long time to achieve even this level of equality in our land of equality. In the process, a lot of young Jewish people were embarrassed about their religion and moved away from it.
I am of mixed feelings about the proposed Muslim community center in Manhattan. Can we build a YMCA in Baghdad?
