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My German brain immediately went to "surely this is because Christmas and Easter are widely treated as cultural rather than religious holidays" but if this was
by hnbad 3y ago
My German brain immediately went to "surely this is because Christmas and Easter are widely treated as cultural rather than religious holidays" but if this was in the SUSE offices, it was in Bavaria and Bavaria is one of the more religiously conservative parts of Germany (e.g. a few decades ago there was a landmark case asserting the right of schools to have a crucifix in the classroom).
That said, that still doesn't explain if this is specifically bigotry against Jews or non-Christian religions in general. Something tells me they'd have been no less (if not more so) disrespectful towards Muslim holidays and sensibilities. The article doesn't call them antisemitic (though it could certainly be read to be implying that) but there's definitely religious bigotry at play and antisemitism might be a contributing factor.
- jacquesm 3y agoNothing more fanatic than splinter sects of the same religion.
- hnbad 3y agoThat's a bit of a non-sequitur and not entirely correct because those splinter sects sorted out their major differences in literal wars hundreds of years ago, which makes their modern disputes more superficial than meaningful. It's not really a case of fanatism but favoritism. My point about Bavaria was more that this rules out the justification that they likely didn't think of the Christian holidays as being related to the Christian religion the same way Hanukkah is to the Jewish religion: Bavaria doesn't exactly have a record of being overly secular, quite the opposite.
- hnbad 3y agoFor context, this is the kind of reasoning I mean when I say "not specifically antisemitic": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31342308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31342308 Many Germans equate "German-ness" with being white and ("culturally") Christian. Jewish holidays would then not only be seen as foreign (in the sense of "Why should a German company celebrate a foreign holiday?") but also religious (unlike Christmas or Easter, which are "just special dates" like Fastnacht or New Year's, as long as you don't emphasize the religious aspects of them). Is this bigoted by defining "German" in an inherently racial, religious and exclusionary way? Yes, definitely. But it's not specifically antisemitic, regardless of whether antisemitism plays an additional part in this instance. And it's very hard to prove as discrimination in a courtroom, especially if you can't demonstrate the specifically antisemitic aspect.
- yellowapple 3y ago> if this was in the SUSE offices, it was in Bavaria SUSE has offices in Washington, Utah, Texas, and Massachussetts AFAICT.