While competitive Wisconsin youth soccer teams from Wisconsin and its neighbors will be kicking the ball around the annual Reddan Toe Bash in Verona, their Jewish teammates will be scoring a seat in synagogue and celebrating Rosh HaShanah with their families.
Sitting out on Toe Bash is not new to Madison lawyer Jeff Spitzer- Resnick or his son, Josh, who plays on a Madison Area Youth Soccer Association (MAYSA) team. In 2007, MAYSA scheduled their annual Toe Bash on Yom Kippur.
Spitzer-Resnick noticed the conflict when the coach handed out the schedule for the season. He sent an email to MAYSA explaining that Josh would not be able to participate because of Yom Kippur’s importance in the Jewish year. He asked them politely to try to avoid High Holiday conflicts in the future.
This June, when his son’s coach distributed the 2009 schedule, Spitzer-Resnick noticed that Toe Bash conflicted with Rosh HaShanah.
“I said, ‘Look, you have time to change this, in which case, great, lesson learned,’” Spitzer-Resnick says.
When MAYSA refused to change the schedule, Spitzer-Resnick went to the press, calling the organization “anti-Semitic.”
“I would never have considered [it anti-Semitism] or even thought about it three years ago,” he says.
“I considered that kind of unknowing, but now I told you and now I gave you a chance, so now I don’t know anything else to call it. Why not put a sign up in front of it saying, ‘Jews aren’t welcome’?”
MAYSA board member and coach Robert Benitez denies Spitzer-Resnick’s claims that MAYSA is anti-Semitic and that Jewish kids are unwelcome.
“As an association, you’re serving 39 clubs so you’re always going to fall on something — someone’s birthday, someone’s anniversary,” he says. “Someone has church on Saturdays, some on Sundays. We all have choices that we have to make.”
Toe Bash is scheduled on the third weekend of September every year. In order to change that, a club president would have to bring the issue up for discussion in their annual February meeting, according to Benitez.
Benitez says he would not bring it up because there are other tournaments his team can play in.
“I have two Jewish kids on my team, so we’re not playing in the Toe Bash. I have other tournaments that are available to me,” he says. “I have no reason to bring it up to club management because the tournament is not that important to me.”
“I’m ignorant when it comes to people’s religious holidays whether it be Jewish, Catholic, Lutheran,” Benitez says. “I try to listen to my parents, what do they want to do, and I go from there.”
But Benitez admits to scheduling practices and games around his own religious beliefs.
“I try not to have games on Sundays because to me, that’s a family day,” he says. “I go to church on Sundays so I try not to have that distraction.”
Both Spitzer-Resnick and MAYSA Executive Director of Operations Chris Lay contacted Steven H. Morrison, executive director of the Madison Jewish Community Council.
“When [Lay] called me, I was candid with him,” Morrison says. “I said I think it’s a bad decision.”
Morrison points out that the federation publishes a 10-year Hebrew calendar “which Chris has,” he says. “Avoiding conflict is not that hard if you plan far enough in advance.”
Lay told the Isthmus, a Madison weekly, that Morrison sided with him on the issue. Morrison denies lending any support to Lay’s decision. Lay refused to comment.
However, Morrison disagrees with Spitzer-Resnick’s claims that MAYSA is anti-Semitic.
“I don’t see it as anti-Semitic,” he says. “I see it as very, very sad that some kids in Madison are going to miss out on an opportunity to support their team by being there because it’s Rosh HaShanah, and that will make some of those kids feel very bad…. They may not have the joy of Rosh HaShanah completely.”
But Spitzer-Resnick says his 12-year-old son was enthusiastic about his crusade against MAYSA’s scheduling.
“He was very affirmative about my doing this,” he says, adding that Josh has been “very pleased” with the media attention.
And so have many others. Spitzer-Resnick says he’s received several e-mails expressing their support from Jews and non-Jews. He even received one from a minister.
Unfortunately, school, work and activity conflicts with the High Holidays are not foreign to the Jews.
Last year, Jeff Fishbach, a Milwaukee Public Schools teacher, asked his principal if he could take off for the High Holidays.
“The only way I would’ve been able to get off was to use my sick hours or personal day,” he says. “But Christians get all of Christmas and Easter off.”
Fishbach decided not to take off. He had dinner with his family, but didn’t go to services.
“I only have two personal days,” he says. “I’m not going to use a personal day for me sitting in services.”
While Fishbach was disappointed with his principal’s decision, he wasn’t angry.
“I wasn’t that mad about it, but it made me think,” he says. “Maybe the kids and maybe some of the teachers need to learn about the traditions.”
On Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, Fishbach makes sure to explain to his students the importance of the day for him.
“Maybe that’s my kind of atoning,” he says. “Maybe by not going to services, I can teach them what it means in Jewish history and Jewish tradition.”
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee senior Ethan Krasnow experienced school conflicts with the High Holidays from the student perspective.
As a freshman at UW-Oshkosh, Krasnow’s math teacher gave him extra homework over one of the High Holidays and warned him to catch up because there would be a quiz as soon as he got back.
“I actually had another teacher for anthropology at Oshkosh who told the whole class that you break a glass at a bar mitzvah,” he wrote in an e-mail interview. “After I told my parents about that, I kind of knew I needed to switch schools.”
UW-Oshkosh complies with the Wisconsin Administrative Code UWS 22.01, stating “It is the policy of the Board of Regents that students’ sincerely held religious beliefs shall be reasonably accommodated with respect to all examinations and other academic requirements.”
Provost Lane Earns says Krasnow’s experience was not in accordance with this policy.
“I do not believe that this would be in compliance with the UW-Oshkosh policy [for employees] that we instituted two years ago nor the UW System policy adopted in 1993,” he said in an e-mail interview.
“We are making every effort to accommodate the religious beliefs of our students, staff and faculty.”
The faculty policy, GEN 3.B.5., was not in place when Krasnow was enrolled at UW-Oshkosh.
Krasnow has had better experiences over the High Holidays since transferring to UWM. He says the teachers are more understanding about his missing class for the holidays, and often give him extensions.
An exception was a professor who assigned 100 pages to read over Yom Kippur.
Krasnow believes UWM should adopt a policy banning teachers from holding classes on the High Holidays.
“I consider myself a pretty good student, and I always worry and fear that if I get behind, then my grades will dip, even if I miss only one day of classes,” he says.
UW-Milwaukee also follows the UWS 22.01, adding UWM Fac. Doc. 1918 that says when there is a scheduling conflict between religious beliefs and course requirements, students are permitted to make up exams or other requirements if the student has notified the instructor within the first three weeks of classes.
“At present, we are not considering prohibiting faculty or instructional staff from holding classes on the High Holidays,” Earns said. “Our efforts are directed toward the accommodation of religious beliefs, rather than the prohibition of teaching.”
“We don’t cancel classes for any religious holiday, per say,” says associate vice chancellor of Academic Affairs Devarajan Venugopalan. “But if a faculty member or student asks for accommodations for the religious holidays we do that.”
He advises students in Krasnow’s situation to talk to the instructor. That strategy didn’t work for Krasnow however. After informing his teacher about the holidays, he was warned that he would fall behind if he didn’t complete his reading.
When it comes to public institutions and the High Holidays, Rabbi Steve Adams is a strong proponent of giving students and teachers the time they need to celebrate with their families. But he’s not certain where the law sides on the issue.
“Some people think it’s illegal for them to deny you that,” says Adams, spiritual leader of Congregation Emanu-El of Waukesha. “I don’t know if that’s true. That’s something I think as a Jewish community, we need a little more guidance on.”
However, when it comes to getting policies changed, Adams has a few tips. He suggests speaking to someone in the Jewish community like a rabbi or federation worker who has connections, and getting non-Jews to advocate for your cause.
“There’s nothing better than having non-Jews who feel that there’s a discriminatory thing and they don’t want to see it happen,” he says. “Other non-Jews will listen to them.”
He also agrees with Fishbach, that sometimes the key is just raising awareness.
“Every Jew in the community has to be a teacher because there are so many people who don’t have a clue as to who we are or what we believe,” Adams says.
In 2006, the Komen Milwaukee Affiliate of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation held the Milwaukee Race for the Cure on Rosh HaShanah.
While Sally Sheperdson, executive director of the Komen Milwaukee Affiliate, says the local affiliates don’t have much control over the dates, she points out that the Milwaukee Race is permanently scheduled for the last Sunday in September, and that this will not conflict with the High Holidays for the next nine years.
However, this year, the “Race for the Cure” will fall on the morning of Kol Nidre. Sheperdson says the affiliate worked with the Jewish community on crafting a message to Jews who may feel conflicted.
“As an affiliate of a national organization, there are many strict guidelines to which we must adhere regarding all aspects of the race, including the date, as well as considering other events in the city of Milwaukee,” it says.
The message assures the events are scheduled to end by noon, and encourages Jews who still have a conflict to get involved in other Komen events or sponsor participating runners.
Kiera Wiatrak is a former Chronicle intern and a communications specialist at UW-Madison.
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