Northdale festival hits a nerve

This year's Northdale Fun Festival ends the afternoon of April 19, about five hours before the Jewish festival of Passover begins.

That's cutting it too close, says an e-mail sent to the Northdale Civic Association and the St. Petersburg Times, one of the event's sponsors.

"Thanks for the planning and scheduling of the Northdale Family Funfest on the day that the Jewish holiday of Passover starts,'' says the e-mail signed by Mike Cohen. "It is greatly appreciated to see the time and consideration given to the Jewish members of the Northdale Community.''

Cohen could not be located for comment. He did not respond to an e-mail from the Times. “I don’t even know if this guy’s a real person,” said civic association president Bill Castens. “I’ve been waiting to hear back from him." Castens also could find no record of his membership in the association.

Nevertheless, Castens sent him back an e-mail, inviting him to get involved in the community and explaining that the civic association did do a lot of planning for the festival. The group rescheduled the festival after Gaither High School’s band, which is leading the parade, wasn’t available earlier in the month.

"We draw 3,000 to 4,000 people,'' said festival business manager Marty Katz. "The food is free. We must be doing something right.”

In his e-mail, Cohen reminded Castens of a previous controversy in Northdale, involving holiday decorations in the winter of 2000. After some homeowners objected to a large Hanukkah menorah posted opposite a Christmas tree, Castens, then on the taxing district board, voted to remove both.

"We have members of the Jewish faith participating with no complaints,'' he wrote in his note to Cohen. "I hope you choose to attend, but if you do not, it is your right.''

-- Amber Mobley, Times staff writer

Comments

[ChrisB]

Happens all the time. Idiots can't (or won't) look at a calendar with Jewish holidays marked on it. If you use MS Outlook it is even simpler, just add all the religious holidays in the calendar setup and you will immediately see any scheduling conflicts. If Cohen thinks this is bad, he should try and deal with the Pinellas County School schedule. They could care less about anybody's holidays.

[T. Tomlinson]

Why was this story even written in the first place? An alleged email from an anonymous person whining on behalf of a religious group about a complaint that is weak at best! Will next weeks story be a 2 pager about an anonymous email complaint from "Paddy O'Whiner" complaining that they scheduled Palm Sunday too close to St Pat's day???
Note to reporters: Report ACTUAL NEWS, not waste space on this type of BS that just incites trouble. It was probably sent by some neo-nazi loking to make jews look bad. Thanks to St Pete Times they got their message posted loud and clear!!!!!!