By Zoe Huber-Weiss’13, Staff Writer

When April comes, we can always depend on certain things to come along with it: birds, flowers, sunshine, and religious tension. The number of important holidays around this time always brings up the awkward problem of how schools should allot time off. As Newark Academy students, none of us wants to miss too much school, even for religious obligations. As a result, the administration must determine the difference between the time we do get off and the time we should get off. In this situation, it is nearly impossible to be truly objective; I am Jewish, and therefore my stance on this issue is at least slightly biased. However, I think it probable that the view of an outsider would be similar to mine- NA’s policies regarding time off for religious holidays favor Christianity.

Newark Academy’s seemingly unfair policies, however, are not the fault of the administration. America itself favors Christianity, which makes a certain amount of sense because the religion was a foundation of society at the time of our country’s creation. That was several hundred years ago; however, even now, private, commercial, and public Christmas displays in December light up almost every city and town in the US, while almost no recognition of important winter holidays of other religions is made public.

The tendencies of the country are mirrored in Newark Academy’s policies. We get two weeks off for “winter” break, which may or may not coincide with Hanukkah, but has to come before Christmas or a riot would ensue. The same thing happens in spring; the first two nights of Passover take a considerable amount of time and energy, and yet we have school and regular homework due during this time. For Good Friday, however, we are given the whole day off. In terms of our policies, the weight clearly rests with Christianity.

Of course, there are factors that transcend the Judeo-Christian struggle considering these are not the only two religions in the world or in the school. There is far more recognition of Jewish holidays than of Hindu ones, yet there is a significant Hindu population in our school and in our nation.

Accordingly, the question arises for school administrations- when do we start recognizing and giving time off for non-mainstream religious holidays? While current religious policies favor Christianity unfairly, I recognize that this is a thorny and tense problem without an easy solution. The NA administration mostly handles this awkward situation well, and the fault does not lie with them. The best thing we can hope for is a gradual decline of religious favoritism in society at large so that, within our community, no one can feel slighted or overlooked for his or her beliefs.