The archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, has come out against suggestions to add Jewish and Muslim high holidays to the list of official Austrian holidays. “Both the Jewish and the Muslim community are not big enough in Austria that their holidays should be holidays for the entire population,” he said in interview with the state-owned broadcaster ORF.
Given that 80 percent of the country’s population was Christian and mostly Catholic, Schönborn said it was “necessary to take into account the views of the majority of the people in the country.” The Catholic leader was responding to calls by Muslim leaders to declare one day during Ramadan and the day of Eid al-Adha as non-working days for Muslims.
The secretary general of the Jewish Community of Vienna (IKG), Raymond Fastenbauer, told the newspaper ‘Kleine Zeitung’ that the community supported making Jewish holidays national holidays, but that this idea was rejected because of objections by people in commerce. The Islamic Religious Community in Austria (IGGiÖ) estimates there are 400,000 to 500,000 Muslims in Austria. The country has around 8.5 million inhabitants. About 15,000 Austrians are Jewish.
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