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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/34293/full/34293/calif-debate-tournament-still-conflicts-with-passover/ <br /><br /> <b>Calif. debate tournament still conflicts with Passover</b> <br /> Friday, February 1, 2008 | by <p>julie gruenbaum fax </p> <br /><br /><p>After months of contentious back and forth over the scheduling of the statewide high school debate tournament in Santa Clara on the first night of Passover, Jewish leaders and tournament organizers have reached a half-hearted detente that will not change the date but will ensure such a scheduling snafu will not happen again.<br /><br /> As part of the compromise, orchestrated by State Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys), the California High School Speech Association also wrote a letter of apology to its coaches, teams and the Jewish community.<br /><br /> “The California High School Speech Association regrets the unfortunate and unintentional conflict of the 2008 state championship tournament with the important holiday of Passover,” the statement reads. “It is our desire to express our apologies that our actions will cause Jewish members of the speech community distress at having to choose between the Passover celebration and participation in the state tournament.”<br /><br /> Jewish leaders were satisfied with the statement, but disappointed that the date was not changed.<br /><br /> “Obviously we did not win on the most important point, changing the date, but the board’s actions in [January] were far more sensitive to the Jewish community than they had been in September,” said Doug Lasken, a debate coach at a Southern California high school and a CHSSA board member.<br /><br /> More than a thousand coaches, parents and students will spend three days, April 18-20, at Santa Clara University at the annual tournament, which culminates the year of debate competitions for schools across the state. The second day of the tournament coincides with the night of the first seder.<br /><br /> The Anti-Defamation League, the Board of Rabbis of Southern California and the Jewish Community Relations Councils of Los Angeles and San Francisco spent months trying to impress upon CHSSA how central the seder is to the ritual and family life of a broad swath of the Jewish community.<br /><br /> They lobbied the group to explore a date change and offered their help to do so, but CHSSA maintained that because venues were booked and paid for it was too late to change the date, which had been set more than a year in advance.<br /><br /> “As much as we might want to protect them from it, we understand that our students will have to make some difficult choices, at times, relative to their personal beliefs,” said CHSSA president Sharon Prefontaine.<br /><br /> That attitude toward any religious or ethnic community was not acceptable to many in the Jewish community.<br /><br /> “We don’t feel that high school students should have to make that kind of decision,” said Alison Mayersohn, senior associate director of the ADL’s Pacific Southwest Region.<br /><br /> But as a result of efforts by Van Nuys Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, the CHSSA board voted in January to insert into its bylaws a stipulation that it will avoid scheduling the tournament on major religious holidays, “within reason.” It also voted to issue the apology, but not to have it posted on its Web site. </p> <p> </p>

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