Should Schools Close on Jewish Holidays?

Once again this year, the public schools in New Haven, Connecticut, will be closed for the first day of Rosh Hashanah and for Yom Kippur. My children can go to synagogue secure in the knowledge that they won’t need to explain their absences, won’t need to make up work, and won’t miss out on key note-passing, lunch-table gossip, and impromptu schoolyard jams to Silentó’s “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae).” The schools have done the multicultural, pluralist thing and, like numerous other American school districts, accommodated my minority group.

And it’s time that they stop. I’ll say it loud: I’m here, I’m Jewish, I have three daughters in public school, and I think the rest of you should go to school on my holidays.