This year, The New School did not schedule the two Jewish High Holidays — Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur, meaning that students still had to attend classes on these days. While individual students could opt to take the day off in observance, they would still be responsible for everything they missed, making it a tough choice for many Jewish students. In another unusual move, the university is also running classes on Indigenous People’s Day and the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.
While no college in the United States is required to have these days off, it has been a custom at The New School, where 12% of the surrounding city’s population is Jewish, according to the Berman Jewish DataBank. So this change begs the question, why is The New School not observing these holidays this year?
The lack of holidays this year could be due to the university returning to in-person classes this fall despite the continuing pandemic. To accommodate for potential days off from COVID-19 outbreaks, the college may have decided to not celebrate several holidays that are not federally mandated.
There could also be another reason that The New School has not canceled classes on these holidays: politicization. The New School may look like an institution that only honors the traditions of one group of people if they only observe the Jewish High Holidays. There are many other people groups that do not have their holidays observed. Suppose we observe Indigenous People’s Day, which was formerly Columbus Day. It could be seen as the University remembering a man that is responsible for the mass genocide of an entire group of people. What about Thanksgiving? Even though we still have that day off, with still having to have class the day before, the school is making traveling home for Thanksgiving much more difficult. Pilgrims and Puritans from Europe first celebrated this tradition at the very genesis of the slave trade in the American colonies, the school might not want to make it harder for us to remember that. Maybe if allowed federally, the school would not celebrate Thanksgiving at all.
So while you could ask to have the day off, you are still responsible for everything you missed, and that would be very difficult academically. So most Jewish students decided to still go to class and observe the High Holidays later in the day or another day.
The question to ask yourself as a Narwhal is, will the High Holidays never be celebrated again, so the school does not portray a Semitic-centered image, or is this just temporary because of the state of the world? Will we return to normal next year? If not, then The New School is showcasing just how important their image is.