From: rothberg@bimacs.BITNET (Danny Rothenberg)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: Using vacation days for the Jewish Holidays
Date: 30 Sep 92 20:27:24 GMT
Organization: Math department, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, ISRAEL

In article <1992Sep24.204936.2111@cbfsb.cb.att.com> jweber@cbnewsg.cb.att.com (jodi.weber) writes:
>In article ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) writes:
>>In article jweber@cbnewsg.cb.att.com (jodi.weber) writes:
>>> How do people in the Jewish community feel about taking vacation days from
>>> work (assuming you work) for the Holidays?
>>>
>>> After all, in a Christian country, Christians don't need to use up their
>>> vacation days for Easter or Christmas.
>>
>>Well, Easter is a bit of a special case, since it *is* on a Sunday
>>every year.

In England and, I think, Canada as well there is a public holiday the
next day: Easter Monday.

>
>True, bad example!
>
>>AT&T (for whom you work, right?) gives us 3 or 4 (I forget which)
>>non-fixed holidays.  This is in lieu of Yom Kippur, Good Friday, Martin
>>Luther King Day, or whatever other holidays you want to observe.  And at
>>least one subsidiary (USL) has stated that an employee can take some
>>other day in Lieu of Christmas.
>
>Yes, I work for AT&T, and I do in fact consider their floating holidays
>vacation policy fair. (By the way, who's USL?)
>
>>In addition, most organizations are fairly accomodating if you want to
>>leave early on the first couple of nights of Pesach and don't insist on
>>your taking vacation days for that.
>>
>>The fact is that Jews (particularly Orthodox Jews) have more days that
>>they need to take off than Christians.  On the whole, I think the AT&T
>>policy (on this aspect, anyway) is quite reasonable.  At Burroughs,
>>they used to give us Good Friday as a holiday, and complain if we
>>wanted our weekend computer time on Sunday rather than Saturday.
>>
>>Evelyn C. Leeper  |  +1 908 957 2070  |  att!mtgzy!ecl or  ecl@mtgzy.att.com
>
>Just to give you my perspective, I'm Conservative, and I don't take off nearly
>as many holidays as I know an Orthodox friend of mine does.  And as
>I stated previously, I accept the fact that I use some vacation for the
>holidays, and it really doesn't bother me because I still have enough time
>left for other purposes.

I consider myself an 'Orthodox' Jew (I do so hate these labels we give
ourselves) and as such always, when I lived in England used to take
off the Yamim Tovim from my allotted (twenty-one days) of holiday
time.  In a year when all the festivals fell mid-week, that left me
with very little time to use for real [secular] holiday, the original
purpose of them.  What especially annoyed me was that two fo the
directors are Jewish, and when i spoke tothem at the beginning about
their policy concerning Yamim Tovim they told me that if I were to do
what they do, ie take off just Rosh HaShanna and Yom Kippur, then I
would probably be able to get away with not having to take them out of
my holiday time, but as I intended taking all of them off, it would
not be fair on the other members of staff to have them as 'extra'
holidays :-((


>In fact, I always rather enjoyed having Christmas
>off because it's an absolutely no-obligations-whatsoever-not-even-running-
>errands day.  So I'm not complaining about AT&T, or whining about the
>unfairness of the world, or anything like that.  I'm just curious about other
>people's opinions on the subject.
>
>That said, I'm still interested in hearing others. So post away!
>
>
>L'Shana Tova!!
>
>Jodi Weber
>jodiweber@attmail.com   or   jweber@cbnewsg.cb.att.com

Be'ahavat Chinam
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Danny Rothenberg            |    ^     I forgive everybody.  Uncoditionally.
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