Islamonline.net

Bloomberg Blocks `Eid in NY Public Schools

By Farah Akbar, IOL Correspondent

"I would sort of be willing to take a day off from school but it's better if school is closed so no one misses out," says Sumaita.

NEW YORK -- When fifth-grader Sumaita Hasan heard that New York City public schools might close on `Eid al-Fitr and `Eid Al-Adha, the two main religious festivals on the Islamic calendar, she could not contain her happiness.
"Cool!" she said excitedly.
Sumaita has good reason to be enthusiastic.
Most Christian and Jewish children can recall with glee how they celebrated Christmas and Hanukkah last year: bonding with family, exchanging gifts, eating delicious meals and attending religious services.
But for Sumaita, she had to spend her `Eid al-Fitr in her 4th grade classroom because the event, which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, fell on a weekday.
She did not even attend religious services that day because they were over by the time the school day had ended.
"We learn new things every day at school and I don’t want to miss out on anything," she told IslamOnline.net.
According to the Coalition for Muslim School Holidays, Muslim students make up approximately 12 percent of the students in New York City’s public schools.
Muslim students and their families across the New York City have for years prayed that their holy days would fall on weekends so that their children would not have to miss a school day.
After much lobbying, NYC City Council recently passed a resolution allowing all public schools to close on `Eid al-Fitr and `Eid Al-Adha.
Just as it looked like their prayers were about to be answered, Mayor Michael Bloomberg rejected the proposal, claiming it was a slippery slope for other religious groups to ask for days off from school as well.
"One of the problems you have with a diverse city is that if you close the schools for every single holiday, there won’t be any school," he recently said.
But New York City public schools, the country’s largest school system, already close for Christmas and the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
A one week spring break is also scheduled every year to coincide with Easter and Passover.
Equal Treatment

"If they want to close the schools for other groups, then the Muslims should have the same right as well. I don’t agree with Mayor Bloomberg."

Councilman Robert Jackson, a Muslim and a strong proponent of the issue, has said that if Bloomberg was not receptive about closing the schools, then "discrimination may be an issue."
Imam Shamsi Ali of the Islamic Cultural Center in Manhattan disagrees.
"I don’t see this as discrimination. I see it as unfair at most. I don’t think he will intentionally do anything discriminatory," he told IOL.
Ali praised Mayor Bloomberg for historically being embracive towards minorities citing his appointment of Omar Mohammedi as the City’s first Arab and Muslim Commissioner of Human Rights.
He says he is working together with his interfaith colleagues to try to influence the Mayor to change his mind.
The proposal to close public schools for the Muslim holidays has received, by and large, approval from other religious communities.
"It’s a matter of equity," Reverend Allen Pinckney of the United Methodist Church in Harlem told IOL.
"If they want to close the schools for other groups, then the Muslims should have the same right as well. I don’t agree with Mayor Bloomberg."
Although he understands Bloomberg’s perspective, Rabbi Mordechai Hecht of the Kew Gardens Jewish Center in Queens still believes that NYC should adapt the same criterion used to grant time off for Christian and Jewish holidays.
"If someone believes in something, you have to fight for it. I am sure there was a fight from the Jews to get their days off."
Rabbi Moshe Edelman, Director of Congregational Standards for the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, says the conservative Jewish community would be supportive "of our brothers and sisters" in the Muslim community.
"With the growing number of Muslims, the mayor should have said yes, out of respect to the Islamic community," he told IOL.
He believes the move would have been appropriate and non-controversial.
Sumaita, the Muslim fifth-grader, hopes the debate ends to her satisfaction.
"It’s important to celebrate a holiday because of your religion," she said.
"I would sort of be willing to take a day off from school but it's better if school is closed so no one misses out."

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