Another triumph for Islamic supremacism, despite the fact the Jews outnumber Muslims in Philly almost to two to one. Astonishing.

Philadelphia’s Mayor Jim Kenney suggested a different standard in announcing the city’s decision to close public schools for Muslim holidays. Rather than focusing on practical need, Kenney explained: “Our city was built on the idea that … the city welcomes all to worship and practice the faiths of our culture or our choosing[.] … We have to take into account how society sometimes ostracizes and eliminates people from the mainstream[.]”  In other words, schools should close on minorities’ religious holidays so that their adherents feel accepted.

Philly Schools Add Muslim Holidays by Cutting Jewish One

By Johanna Markind, American Thinker, June 22, 2018:

Introduction

Back when public schools were overwhelmingly Christian, scheduling religious holidays meant closing for Christmas and, in some places, for Jewish high holidays.  As American school populations change, deciding for which religious holidays schools should close and on what basis becomes more complex.

According to Anti-Defamation League religious freedom counsel David Barkey, consistently with the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, “[p]ublic schools can’t close to observe a holiday, but can if there’s an appropriate secular reason.  The reason usually is the level of absenteeism” that would hamper schooling.

Philadelphia’s Mayor Jim Kenney suggested a different standard in announcing the city’s decision to close public schools for Muslim holidays.  Rather than focusing on practical need, Kenney explained: “Our city was built on the idea that … the city welcomes all to worship and practice the faiths of our culture or our choosing[.] … We have to take into account how society sometimes ostracizes and eliminates people from the mainstream[.]”  In other words, schools should close on minorities’ religious holidays so their adherents feel accepted.

Sadly, Philadelphia’s approach to holiday closures fails both standards.  Its public schools closed June 12, 2018, in time for Muslim students to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, beginning June 15.  Without determining whether the numbers of practitioners necessitated the change, Philadelphia added Muslim holidays to its calendar to make Muslims feel welcome – and paid for it partly by reducing Jewish holiday observances, school district documents show.  What’s more, the school district underhandedly failed to identify the reasons for the change.

Philadelphia Changes Its School Calendar

On May 31, 2016, Philadelphia school district superintendent Dr. William Hite announced: “I’m honored and proud to announce that the school district fully intends to honor the eid celebrations for the many Muslim students and staff that celebrate these holidays.”  The 2016-17 academic calendar had already been finalized, Hite explained, so the holidays would be added in future years.

On December 15, 2016, Philadelphia’s School Reform Commission (SRC) adopted an unusual two-year calendar, for 2017-18 and 2018-19, which moved school start and end dates so as to bypass the two Muslim festivals both years, while reducing the Rosh Hashanah holiday beginning in 2018-19.

Specifically, Eid al-Adha began September 2, 2017, on Labor Day weekend; Philadelphia schools started Tuesday, September 5.  School ended June 12, 2018; Eid al-Fitr began June 15.  In 2018-19, Eid al-Adha is expected to begin August 22; school starts the following Monday, August 27.  School will end June 4, 2019; Eid al-Fitr is expected to begin on June 5.

Effective 2018-19, the new calendar also eliminates a day from Jewish high-holiday closures.  Schools will close September 10 and be open September 11.  For many years, Philadelphia closed public school for both days of Rosh Hashanah and for Yom Kippur.  The reasons were practical: many public school teachers were Jewish, and so were several students.  It made sense to close schools rather than find a large number of substitute teachers, or teach with several students absent.

School district spokesman Harold Whack denied that the calendar change had anything to do with Muslim holidays.  Cheryl Logan, the school district’s chief of academic support, claimed that the school year was moved to give students more schooling earlier in the year.

Nevertheless, briefing notes for school superintendent Hite’s January 17, 2017 talk at a forum on “diverse and inclusive schools” boasted about the district’s “signature initiatives,” including “School District Calendar-SRC approves the recognition and observance of Muslim holy days: Eid al-Fitr AND Eid al-Adha on District calendar.”  A month after the new calendar was adopted, Hite boasted that the school district had succeeded in its signature initiative of recognizing Muslim holidays.

Logan identified Philly Eid Coalition, a consortium representing the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other groups, as a stakeholder in creating the school calendar.

Although Whack claimed that the calendar was changed after an “open process” that included Jewish community members, he could not name a single Jewish leader consulted or a single instance in which the intent to reduce Jewish holiday closures was spelled out.  A school district email from Logan obtained through an open records request claimed that the school district would include “Bnai Brith” in an October 11, 2016 meeting, but there is no indication that it actually did or that holiday closure changes were explained at the meeting.  According to Robin Burstein, senior associate regional director of the ADL’s Philadelphia chapter, the group has no record or recollection of having been consulted about reducing the Rosh Hashanah holiday.  Despite an open records request for same, the school district produced no records that it disclosed to the Jewish community its intention to reduce Jewish holiday closures before enacting the changed calendar, let alone that it did so to make room for Muslim holiday closures.

Philadelphia’s Rationale Fails to Satisfy First Amendment

Clearly, Philadelphia did not adopt the ADL’s approach to scheduling religious holidays.  It did not determine how many teachers or students wanted Jewish holidays off, nor does it have good data about the number of Muslims, let alone how many want holidays off.  Whack stated that the school district did not know how many teachers or students are Jewish.  He refused to answer whether it knew how many are Muslim.  Hite’s briefing notes assert that there are “28,000 Muslims in the School District,” but neither it nor Whack provided a source for that statistic.

U.S. census data indicated that there were only 39,540 Muslims in Philadelphia City and County in 2010.  In 2013, Temple University professor Khalid Blankinship estimated that there were 30,000 Muslims in Philadelphia.  Using either number, a school-age population of 28,000 seems excessive.

The 2009 Jewish Population Study of Greater Philadelphia estimated that the city has 66,800 Jews.

The Philly Eid Coalition sought closures on the grounds that their lack meant that Muslim “students and workers in Philadelphia don’t feel Islam is treated with the same respect as other faiths recognized and observed by our City.”  CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper similarly applauded New York City’s decision to close for Muslim holidays, “When these holidays are recognized, it’s a sign that Muslims have a role in the political and social fabric of America.”  This is the approach Philadelphia seems to have adopted, but how shortening Jewish holidays to incorporate Muslim ones demonstrates respect for Judaism remains a mystery.

How to incorporate minority religious holidays into school calendars, without unduly disrupting schooling for non-observers or unfairly favoring some at the expense of others, is an issue likely to recur.  With increasing success, CAIR has lobbied for eid (holiday) closures in New York City; Montgomery County, Maryland; Jersey City and Clifton, New Jersey; Waterbury, Connecticut; Broward County, Florida; and elsewhere.  For the 2017-18 school year, public schools in New York City and Jersey City started after Eid al-Adha and closed for Eid al-Fitr.  Montgomery County schools started after Eid al-Adha and ended just before Eid al-Fitr.  American schools also have increasing populations of Buddhists and Hindus.

Readers may decide for themselves whether Philadelphia’s reorienting its school year to accommodate Muslim holidays, while simultaneously reducing Jewish holiday observances – without having or seeking good data about the need for holiday closures – squares with the First Amendment or demonstrates equality, respect, and acceptance for both religious minorities.

The Truth Must be Told

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Halal Bacon

5 years ago

yah, I heard they are planning a “National Pole Smoker’s Week” next, oh, wait….

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felix1999

5 years ago

Reply to  Halal Bacon

I’m waiting for National Pedophile Day!

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lostlegends

5 years ago

The Jews vote, and fund the Left (Democrats) so they get what they asked for. I’m sure they approve.

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BRUH

5 years ago

LOL THA WYTS ON HEAH SO BITTER YOU CAN TELL MOST OF EM NEVER GET ANY

THEY BLUE BALLED AF

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BethesdaDog

5 years ago

Reply to  BRUH

Get out, schvatz!

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Dave Glynn

5 years ago

Reply to  BRUH

LoL! I imagine you sound like Jethroe from the Beverley hillbillies.
Y’all come back Now!

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Sing On

5 years ago

This is ridiculous.

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Alleged-Comment

5 years ago

It should work both ways then? Let only MOSLEMS celebrate their OWN holy days. They don’t have to show up for school.

If your school officials don’t agree, then they are committing treason on you.

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Mickey Oberman

5 years ago

Philadelphia, city of brotherly love unless you are Jewish.
Philadelphia, city of gross hypocrisy |hiˈpäkrisē|
noun (pl. hypocrisies)
the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform; pretense.
Philadelphia, Anti Semitic capital of the USA.
Philadelphia, bigotry demonstrated for all to see.
Philadelphia, surrendered to Islam without a shot being fired.
Philadelphia, TRAITOR!

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Dave Glynn

5 years ago

Reply to  Mickey Oberman

The idiot should try reading the koran and then maybe he’d realise it isn’t quite the sweet minority religion that he thinks it is.

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txdoc

5 years ago

F them..soon have national jihad day..bring your bomb to school for show and tell

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felix1999

5 years ago

Muslims keep chipping away. They are tenacious.
Philadelphia is a lost cause. It’s now 70% black and lots of disenfranchised blacks convert to it. The Mayor is totally nuts!

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R. Arandas

5 years ago

Reply to  felix1999

The Africans of America who convert to Islam are a disgrace to their ancestors (including the Berbers subjugated by the Arabs) and the millions of Africans in Africa today, who suffer every week from Muslim terrorism such as from Boko Haram.

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Sunshine Kid

5 years ago

Reply to  R. Arandas

Not necessarily so. The African slavers who captured their countrymen and sold them into slavery were by and large muslims. But the liberals of today do not blame those who captured the people for slavery; they blame those who owned slaves, even though the Koran not only permits slavery, it encourages it. Oh, but those weren’t muslim slave owners, so that is why they can denounce them so loudly.

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ladywarrior

5 years ago

Reply to  Sunshine Kid

…and it is very confusing to me when American Blacks convert to Islam…..apparently they don’t know that in Arabic the word “black” converts to “slaves”…..from the frying pan into the fire….

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Rob Porter

5 years ago

Reply to  ladywarrior

The ignorance and racism of so many black Americans is appalling, but then, if you neglect your education this is what a group gets, hoards of ignorant people who gravitate to trash.

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Dave Glynn

5 years ago

Reply to  Rob Porter

MohaMad called them “Raisin Heads” arab muzrats are classic racists, and I never use that word lightly. (Unlike the lefty’s)

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Sunshine Kid

5 years ago

Reply to  ladywarrior

I have to agree with you. It is insanity, but it is what it is.

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Mickey Oberman

5 years ago

Reply to  ladywarrior

Abed or Ibed.

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IzlamDownpressesHumanity

5 years ago

Reply to  R. Arandas

When George Patton was in N. Africa fighting the Vichy French he was feted by a Moroccan Berber sultan who owned a harem of sex slaves. When one of the Sultan’s panthers got out and killed a sex slave and interrupted a dinner party in Patton’s honor, the Sultan explained it was of no consequence she was just a slave and the dinner party continued.

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Cheryl

5 years ago

Reply to  IzlamDownpressesHumanity

WOW!

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Rob Porter

5 years ago

Reply to  felix1999

Muslim have a plan and goal, the dominance of sharia everywhere, while the West has lost its way, largely believes in nothing, doesn’t teach about democracy, doesn’t extol the virtues of Western civilization – oh dear that would be ‘racist’ – and through political correctness is gripped by notions of ‘tolerance’, ‘acceptance’, ‘diversity’, ‘inclusion’ – but doesn’t possess the guts to insist that its beliefs and ways be accepted. Why? Because like most Canadians they don’t believe in ‘anything much anymore’ and thus pretty much everything is acceptable and must be tolerated – no matter how disagreeable. And it it seems disagreeable, for the sake of political correctness tolerance, convince yourself that it is okay. This attitude is to cowardly mush, but then, that is what liberals are all about, empty-headed and cowardly mush.

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Mickey Oberman

5 years ago

Reply to  Rob Porter

When did you take your last survey of “most Canadians”?

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felix1999

5 years ago

MANY of the Phila schools are dominated by blacks and MANY have MUSLIM principals and teachers. The majority of schools have the MSA, Muslim Student Association. Try having a Christian or a Jewish after school club. It it’s the same old story. They take over the CITIES first and spread out. Look at London in the UK.

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ladywarrior

5 years ago

Reply to  felix1999

….this is just another example of how Swamp Sissy Sessions is falling down on the job…as he has since the day after he was sworn in…..Fire him, President Trump and put Jay Sekulow in there….it’s time to clean house!
Also fire, the MIA Sec of Education, Becky DeVos….who has done ZERO in cleaning up the schools…..

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R. Arandas

5 years ago

Most liberals prefer Muslims over Jews.
Most conservatives prefer Jews over Muslims.
The two are as different as day and night…

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Sunshine Kid

5 years ago

Reply to  R. Arandas

Because they ARE the difference between the light of good and the dark of terror. Jews do not advocate the killing of muslims as much as the muslims advocate the killing of everyone.

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ladywarrior

5 years ago

Reply to  R. Arandas

Because Conservatives and Jews share a common religion and heritage….It’s called the Constitution….formed on Judeo/Christian beliefs…..sad that so many Jewish progressives and Globalist have forgotten that….
The Left Libtards identify more with the Fascism and brutality of Islam….as we see so often in the news now….
I am heartened by the once very strong Democrat-Alan Dershowitz -who has stood up against the rabid Libtards and called them out…
there are at least some highly visible Dimms calling out their own.

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Rob Porter

5 years ago

Reply to  ladywarrior

Agreed, Alan Dershowitz to his credit has been a revelation.

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James Stamulis

5 years ago

I would say it is hard to believe this crap but the left is capable of anything. Islam is their tool to create chaos and out of chaos comes order the NWO.

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ladywarrior

5 years ago

Reply to  James Stamulis

Bingo! You got it. And do you remember who is fond of saying that? Barrack Hussein Obama: “In Chaos there is Opportunity.” him and his buddy, Rahm Emanuel.
And another favorite of mine from the Muslim Marxist Obama:”They bring a knife to a fight, you bring a gun.”
Be careful what you wish for, Obummer, you just might get your wish.

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iprazhm

5 years ago

Philadelphia is becoming Sharia compliant as it bows to Islam. No longer loyal to America or the Constitution.

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ladywarrior

5 years ago

There isn’t enough money on the planet to pay me to go anywhere near the North East or the Left Coast….no tourism for me in any of those places….

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Michael Jacobs

5 years ago

Good article. Don’t these idiots realize that the Muslim lunar calendar is NOT interpolated by any leap days or months to keep it in line with the solar year, so their gerrymandering of the start and end days of school is NOT a permanent solution? The various Muslim holidays occur a couple of weeks earlier each year, until they go completely around the calendar and start over again. In other words, the feast ending Ramadan can coincide with Memorial Day, and it can also coincide with Christmas, or it could come right in the middle of Finals Week.

The article points out the correct and legal basis on which school holidays should be set. Philly blew it on this one. We had a similar argument in my locality because many (if not a majority) of public school teachers were Jewish and would take off Rosh Hashonah and Yom Kippur, so those were made official holidays, along with Christmas, when most of the students would be absent (Easter always falls on a Sunday, so, no problem.) Pressure from a growing Muslim population eventually led the school authorities to add a Muslim holiday to the calendar and remove one of the days of Rosh Hashonah. Even though the real reason for the holiday was widely stated during the debate, it was not widely UNDERSTOOD (or accepted) by either the vocal Muslim contingent pushing for a new holiday, or their supporters in the (very liberal) local community.

Most Jewish kids around here whose families actually care about observing the required Jewish holidays of rest are already enrolled in Jewish schools, anyway. Otherwise they would be taking personal days off, and missing class, during Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret, Simchat Torah, Passover, and Shevuot.

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aemoreira1981

5 years ago

Reply to  Michael Jacobs

You still have the issue of the teachers. As a matter of practicality, could the schools function on the days of Rosh Hashanah when teachers who are Jewish would take off because of religious observance?

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Michael Jacobs

5 years ago

Reply to  aemoreira1981

In my area, most of the Jewish teachers are either Reform or unaffiliated, and their synagogues (if they belong to any) only have Rosh Hashonah last one day, anyway. While there may be a few strictly-observant Jewish teachers in the public schools, not enough to make it hard to find sufficient substitute teachers, so not enough to disrupt class by their absence.

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shaongaon

5 years ago

Dum-dum-dum Another one bites the dust ooh-ooh, dum-dum-dum..and another one gone, and another one gone..

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aemoreira1981

5 years ago

The outrage should be over eliminating Rosh Hashanah. If that happened in NYC, there would be a riot.

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Bill Kauy

5 years ago

City of brotherly love I guess they forgot who blew up the Twin Towers !

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Merchantseamen

5 years ago

The democrats all seem to be under some kind of mass hypnosis regarding muzums. Europe leaders are the same way. It boggles my mind. Its like Saul who was blinded and could not see till the scales fell from his eyes. Bu the demos brains are infected. I don’t get it. I did not rust them when I was 19m years old when i was in North Africa back in the early 70’s. Those people are creepy.

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Meg

5 years ago

How many of the muslims are actually citizens of the US? Are we changing our holidays for refugees?

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