The Entrenched Schizophrenia in The Israeli Calendar

Batya Medad
Shilo Musings
01 September '10

On the whole, the State of Israel functions according to the Jewish Calendar. Official state holidays and school vacations are all in accordance with Jewish Law and Calendar. The biggest national clash is the opening of the school year. That's today, September 1. Most years that's fine for all the schools, state-religious (mamlachti-dati) and state-secular (mamlachti.) The traditional time for the opening of yeshivot, religious Torah seminaries, is the first of the Jewish Month of Elul, the month before Rosh Hashannah, the Jewish New Year.

According to Jewish Law, our New Year is an extremely important spiritual time, an interactive spiritual time when we are supposed to make an accounting of our lives, deeds etc of the past year and beseech G-d to forgive our sins so we can begin the new year clean and pure. That's not something done vacationing, shopping and goofing off. So many schools and school districts must make a crucial decision, one permitted by Israeli Law. Should school open before the first of September or not?

The schools which only open today have less than a week of school before the Rosh Hashannah vacation/Holiday begins. That isn't enough time.

That's why many schools began earlier causing problems within families, neighborhoods etc. Our local school district, the Benjamin Regional Council had school open this past Sunday, August 29, so there would be just over a full week of school before Rosh Hashannah. The days will be made up as added (bridge) vacations during the year.

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