New York – After more than a year of diplomatic efforts led by the Israeli Mission to the United Nations, the body has recognized Yom Kippur as an official UN holiday.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
Thursday’s decision was made by the UN workers committee and the UN secretariat.
A step forward had been made in 2014 when the 69th General Assembly recognized the importance of the holiday as the holiest day of the Jewish year.
The designation means no official meetings will take place on this day and employees can choose to not work on that day.
Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon called the move “a decisive victory” that “finally provides an official place for the Jewish religion in the world’s parliament.”
The recognition would not have been possible, he said, without the cooperation of the US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, who prevented the anti-Israel majority at the UN from blocking the resolution.
“Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year for the Jewish people, and the UN should have recognized this holiday many years ago,” Danon said.
“The American-Israeli Partnership at the UN stands for good versus bad and right versus wrong. The value of justice, anchored in Jewish tradition and thought, will finally find its place in the family of nations, and be a part of the UN’s history,” he added.
Until Thursday, the United Nations had recognized 10 official holidays, including Christmas and the Muslim holiday of Id al-Fitr.
Last Yom Kippur, as part of the campaign to gain the recognition, Danon’s predecessor Ron Prosor, held the first-ever Tashlich ceremony at the UN, a ritual consisting of the symbolic throwing away of the wrongdoings of the previous year into water, thereby letting go of the burdens of the past in order to start the new year with a clean slate.
Attendees included representatives of countries such as the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Grenada, Tanzania, the Central African Republic and Sierra Leone, as well as UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon.
How nice…recognition ar last….
Like who cares….
But wait a minute — according to the towering intellects who comment here, the administration is a nest of Jew haters; Obama, Kerry, Power, etc. Could it be that (gasp) the usual suspects here – Golani, Ayoyo, and the rest of their feeble-minded chevra — are WRONG?
Could it be that their delusional paranoia and arguments based on fear and rumor and a good dose of talk-radio idiocy have once again fallen in the face of reality? Reality being that just because a U.S. administration has problems and disagreements and even personal clashes with Israeli leaders, it doesn’t mean the officials of that administration are anti-Semitic, let alone Haman or Hitler or any of the other choice epithets the nuts on VIN regularly hurl at them?
After all, Reagan detested Begin and Bill Clinton couldn’t stand Bibi when he was prime minister the first time around in the 1990s, and yet none of our heilige Yidden referred to either of those presidents the way they refer to Obama. I wonder what the difference is.
& what about all other holidays & every shabbos? All are the same holy it’s all saying in the same Torah,.
Who the hell cares!
I think that’s why the Jews have so many problems in this world we’re always waiting for people (the goyim)to recognize us and to come to our side then we feel good we forget that there’s a G-d in this world that’s the only thing we need on our side we have to spend our time focusing on how to make ourselves better So G-d could do a give us what is needed
Sigh. Yerachmiel Yerachmiel, I really feel for you. Don’t you realize that this means absolutely nothing and that is why your holy and righteous president went along with it ?