Religion

BAY RIDGE, N.Y. -- During Ramadan, Sarah Eldib, a ninth-grader at Fort Hamilton High School in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, doesn’t join her peers after school as they gather around the schoolyard to chat with friends or play basketball and soccer. Instead Eldib returns home to pray until dusk and then to break her daylong fast with a sit-down family meal. At some point, she squeezes in time to do her homework before praying again from 8 p.m. until midnight.

Every day for one month, Eldib follows the same ritual until the start of Eid-Ul-Fitr, a celebration marking the end of Ramadan. Eid-Ul-Fitr is among Islam’s holiest days, and Eldib is one of 120,000 Muslim students in the city’s public schools who faces the difficult choice of going to class or celebrating the holiday with family.

“I feel very left out,” said Eldib. “My school doesn’t realize the importance of these holidays.”

While the New York City Department of Education (DOE) closes school on several Christian and Jewish holidays, such as Christmas and Passover, Muslim holidays are not observed on the academic calendar used statewide.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said that schools can find ways to allow Muslim children to take the holidays off without canceling classes, despite a public outcry from the Muslim community that Muslim students are not being granted the same religious rights offered to Christian and Jewish students.

"We make provisions for students who would like to pray during school hours in schools," said Marge Feinberg, spokesperson for the DOE. She added that the school board also has a chancellor's regulation that makes accommodations for students who request time off for religious reasons.

According to the 2004 report “Muslims in New York City Project,” issued by Columbia University’s Middle East Institute, 95 percent of Muslim children attend New York City’s public schools.

Muslim children are one the fastest-growing religious minorities in New York public schools, comprising 12 percent of the student population.

“Kids should not have to choose between going to school, doing well in school and practicing their religion,” said Marjon Kashani, coordinator for the Coalition for Muslim School Holidays.

“Missing a day at school is hard for students that would like to have perfect attendance, who can't not go to school or they'll miss a test, or have to worry about making up school work,” said Kashani.

The coalition, which is made up of more than 55 labor, religious, community and advocacy organizations lobbying to put Muslim holidays on the academic calendar, was formed after a mandatory New York State Regents exam was scheduled on Eid-Uhl-Adha in January 2006, preventing Muslim students from celebrating the holiday with family. In response, the coalition and other advocacy groups, protested that Muslim students were being forced to choose between education and religion, prompting State Senator John Sabini to introduce legislation that now bans testing on religious holidays.

Earlier this year, the coalition brought the issue to the attention of Robert Jackson, chairman of the City Council's education committee. Jackson, in turn, sponsored a resolution urging the State Legislature to pass a law making Eid-Uhl-Adha – a celebration that occurs around December marking the annual pilgrimage to Mecca— and Eid-Uhl-Fatir official school holidays.

During a recent City Council hearing on Muslim school holidays, Jackson said that the current academic calendar places Muslim students at a serious disadvantage by having to choose between missing school, which can result in falling behind their peers and tarnishing their attendance records, or participating in an important holiday.

“It is important that we recognize the key religious holidays for such a sizable number of our student population,” Jackson said.

New Jersey, which has 400,000 Muslims in comparison to New York’s 700,000 Muslims, has incorporated Muslim holidays into several of its district’s school calendars.

“We should have been the one setting the example and not waiting for the state of New Jersey to be setting the example for this type of resolution,” said Linda Sarsour, acting director of the Arab American Association in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

Muhammad Shamsi Ali, deputy imam of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York and director of the Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens, serves as a spiritual advisor to thousands of Muslim families. He says that the observance of the Eid days is important because it teaches young people about respect. He described it as a key time when families come together and visit community leaders.

“American people are so religious, and so we want to see our children as so educated, so intelligent, so smart, but at the same time they must be religious,” Shamsi Ali said during the City Council hearing. “I believe that adding these holidays to the school calendar will be a good way of building bridges within communities and among difference faiths.”