Representation of 15 Orthodox Jewish organizations adopted a resolution here lest night, calling on the President’s Commission on Equal Employment Opportunity to conduct a public hearing on the issue of the right of observant Jews to be excused from work on major Jewish holidays like Rosh Hashane and Yom Kippur.
The session, summoned by the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, opposed a ruling on that issue handed down last week by the President’s Commission. In that ruling, announced by Dr. Luther Holcomb, acting chairman of the Commission, the Federal agency held that employers may use their own discretion on releasing from work employes who wish to observe the holidays of their faith. The Commission decided only that an employer must treat all his workers with “substantial uniformity,” so that if a Christian worker is given Good Friday off with pay, a Jew must also be released with pay on the Jewish holidays.
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