I just saw a discussion among corporate event planners where one person was upset that event organizers don’t give proper consideration to scheduling over top of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.
I can appreciate the annoyance, when I was still a practicing Christian I would never think to schedule a work thing over Easter or Christmas. We should treat others with consideration, and should be mindful of what others view as important days. But I also don’t know what each religion considers to be major, non negotiable holidays. Do you?
Another question, does it matter where the event is? (for example, in the US should less consideration be given to holidays of religions that have fewer adherents?)
I think the trick with a lot of religious holidays is that they’re based on different calendars and move around.
It’s not like Christmas or New Years which are reliably 12/25 and 1/1.
Look at Easter! It could be any Sunday between March 22 and April 25. I couldn’t tell you, without looking it up, when it will be next year. (Pro-tip - it’s 4/20/2025).
At work, we have a lot of folks who celebrate Indian holidays, but the dates for those can even vary regionally.
Calendars are arbitrary. Rosh Hashanah is on the first of Tishrei every single year. Not my fault that Pope Gregory the 13th came up with some ridiculous contraption that doesn’t even follow the moon in the 1580s.
What a silly thing to cling to.
Tangentially, whose idea was it that the day starts and ends at some arbitrary point in the middle of the night, not when the sun goes down? Like hello, sun is gone, day is over
Sun goes down, are you crazy?
The sun rising in the morning is clearly the superior indicator for a new day starting. Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to talk about staying up until 2 a.m. on Friday night while hung over on Saturday morning. That would mean Saturday night comes before Saturday!
If anyone needs me I’ll be in the angry dome.
You say that, but then there’s Venezuela.
Or any of the churches that have kept Christmas where the Julian calendar had it, which is generally some time in January.
What’re you talking about? Hanukkah starts on the 25th of Kislev every year. It’s Christmas that shifts about all over the place! Luckily, this year it’s easy to remember as it also happens on the 25th of Kislev.
Though you wouldn’t know it’s one day from going to the stores! It feels like Christmas starts as early as the middle of Tishri these days!