That saying "Happy Easter" is out of place?

[Ethicaldebacle]

We're a Jewish family, and only celebrate Xmas in a secular / Santa way. We celebrate all other main Jewish holidays at home and our friends know this, yet they sent a message of happy Easter. Isn't this out of place? (They even knew we just had a Passover Seder!)

Hope you have a nice break.

Doing anything for the long weekend?

I hope you enjoy the enjoy bank holiday!

This isn't tricky.

Agree!

I've been saying that all weekend. I'm all about the chocolate 😬

The bank holiday is called Easter Monday. The school holidays are called Easter holidays. Happy Easter to me just refers to that period in time and yes it does have a religious origin, but so do the days of the week and no one gets offended by Happy Friday because they don't follow the Anglo Saxon goddess Frig.

For context, though I not religious, I do come from a Muslim family background and no one I know would be offended by "Happy Easter". That doesn't mean you are not allowed to feel offended - that's up to you - but I would say you are an outlier in terms of sensitivity.

Yeah, I'm with those saying it's just a way of spreading joy.
Like if someone said to me Happy Eid/Eid Mubarak for example, I'd just say it back.
Doesn't mean I'm celebrating it myself.
It's just joy spreading imo.

You probably caused confusion by celebrating Christmas even though you’re Jewish. Why would someone think Easter is offensive to you if you celebrate Christmas? YABU

We've explained it tons of times to them. We even saw them last week and said something about us celebrating Easter. And I said Easter had nothing to do with Passover. The Easter events happened during Passover, but as we don't believe in Jesus at all, it has zero relevance to us. I've explained how Xmas tonus is all about Santa, and just so our kids don't feel left out as they're the only Jewish kids in town.

Bloody hell, what bastards. Obviously the only option is to block these imaginary friends OP.

Wow, people nowadays take offense at anything and everything. I'm not sure what age you are, but I'm finding more and more that people of a certain (younger) generation almost seek out being offended. It's actually very sad.

I'm not at all religious but decorate for Easter and send Happy Easter messages to friends, same as I would at Christmas - Merry Christmas NOT Happy Holidays.

So much of what we do is rooted in religion but much of it now is just down to heritage and customs so unless they were trying to convert you (unlikely), I'd just take it for what it is - a friendly gesture. Why make life more complicated than it needs to be?

We don't even call Easter eggs Easter eggs at home, we call them "seasonal spring chocolate eggs

huh? What’s the seasonal in there for? Spring is the season. As bad as irregardless.

This. ^ People will fly around the moon and back to try to find offence in something these days. 🙄

The world doesn't revolve around you dear.
I like Sadiq Kahn's take on multi culturism, he celebrates everything.

I used to think "yOu CaN't SaY mErRy ChRiStMaS aNy MoRe WiThOuT gEtTiNg ArReStEd FoR uPsEtTiNg SoMeOnE's FeElInGs" was just right-wing dickheads pretending to be outraged about left-wing dickheads imagining that people might actually be offended.

They are clearly anti semetic.

More on topic, I’ve coincidentally just had this conversation with dd(9).

A sentiment given to you in kindness should be taken as such. It really doesn’t matter if you share the background belief or not, someone has shared something important to them to illustrate their wish to you.

it can be used passive aggressively (in which case I’ve advised dd to just comment it’s their own time they’re wasting) but unless you’re weirdly competitive about Passover vs Easter you’re massively over thinking this @Ethicaldebacle and introducing an element of conflict where there is no need for it.

Now that is totally ridiculous! And a bloody mouthful 🙄

I grew up in a Jewish neighbourhood and we didn’t take offence at each other’s religious (or secular) holidays and even made a point to join in where appropriate.

I would wish my friends a Happy Passover and they would wish me a Happy Easter but they also would have an Easter Bunny and join in the Easter Egg Hunt at school. They even took part in the Easter bonnet parade.

YANBU at being a bit puzzled why they insist on wishing you a happy Easter but pretty ridiculous at referring to seasonal spring chocolate eggs 😂

Do you think they had ill intent? That they were deliberately trying to offend you?
if not I wouldn’t give it any further consideration. It was merely an attempt to wish you a pleasant time.

If you believe they were deliberately trying to upset you then they weren’t friends to begin with and don’t require further thought.

You're being ridiculous.

My Moroccan muslim neighbours wished me happy Eid, I wished them happy Eid back. I´m Catholic. Then got on with the rest of my day. I like good wishes.

Millions upon millions of chocolate eggs, hot cross buns etc being bought by people who don't set foot in a church unless it's a wedding or funeral suggests otherwise.

For the overwhelming majority, Easter is a cultural tradition associated above all with chocolate and a long weekend.

There’s a fair chance they’re not even religious themselves but just wanted to wish you a nice weekend break.

I’ve been celebrating Easter since I was a child - Christian religious festivals were drummed into us at school. To me, it’s secular. I’m agnostic, raised by atheist parents who have been celebrating Easter for decades. It’s normal in the UK.

Do you think they were trying to offend you? If you don’t, just let it go. All humans are imperfect. It was probably meant well.

I don’t believe that any of the Easter story actually happened, but I still say Happy Easter to friends, by which I mean “enjoy the long weekend”. My one Jewish friend replied, “Happy Festival of Chocolate”. Hopefully I haven’t offended her, but if she did say she felt offended I would’ve just thought, “Oh get over yourself!” and made a mental note not to say anything next year. You could just tell your friend what behaviour you’d like in future. I’ve had an open conversation with my Jewish friend about whether she wants to be on my Christmas card list.

A sentiment given to you in kindness should be taken as such. It really doesn’t matter if you share the background belief or not, someone has shared something important to them to illustrate their wish to you.

This is exactly my feeling. You have a choice here; you can choose to accept the sentiment in the spirit with which it was given, or you can choose to be offended.

I'm 67 soon - the chocolate and hot cross bun fest has been a thing all my life (and most people I knew as a child didn't go to church).

They probably automatically sent the message to many people, OP, and just didn't make the connection with you.