{"id":362636,"date":"2026-10-02T06:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T06:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/362636\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T06:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T06:30:09","slug":"gavin-newsom-signs-eid-al-fitr-and-eid-al-adha-into-law-as-new-california-state-holidays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/362636\/","title":{"rendered":"Gavin Newsom signs Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha into law as new California state holidays"},"content":{"rendered":"

California Gov.\u00a0Gavin Newsom<\/a>\u00a0signed into law a bill that formally recognizes two Muslim holidays as state holidays<\/a> on Sunday, making it the second state to formally recognize both holidays statewide.<\/p>\n

California Assembly Bill 2017 officially added Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha\u00a0to the\u00a0list of state holidays, which would permit public schools and colleges to close and allow state employees to be eligible to observe the holidays.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, schools and businesses will not be required to close on these days, and courts will be required to stay open.<\/p>\n

This makes California the second state in the country, after Washington state, to pass statewide legislation recognizing the Muslim holidays.<\/p>\n

Before signing AB 2017, Newsom had multiple bills on his desk that provided protections and exceptions for other religious observances, including Jewish holidays such as Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For example,\u00a0AB 395<\/a>, which reached the governor days before AB 2017, would codify these Jewish holidays, among others, into state law and require state agencies and facilities like schools to \u201cmake every reasonable effort\u201d to avoid scheduling significant functions for those days.<\/p>\n

Another bill,\u00a0AB 1763<\/a>, would also guarantee students in K-12 be allowed excused absences for religious holidays.<\/p>\n

Though these bills were introduced and presented to the governor before AB 2017, Newsom did not sign the additional bills into law until Wednesday, prior to the midnight deadline.<\/p>\n

Republican opponents criticized Newsom for appearing to prioritize bills recognizing Muslim holidays over bills allowing for equal treatment for Jewish holidays.<\/p>\n

\"CaliforniaGov. Gavin Newsom has signed a bill making California the second U.S. state to recognize the Muslim holidays Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that Newsom chose to sign the Eid law before the law that protected other religious observance speaks volumes about the direction he is moving as he eyes a 2028 run for the presidency,\u201d Elizabeth Barcohana, chair of Jewish engagement for the California Republican Party, told\u00a0Cleveland Jewish News<\/a>\u00a0(JNS) Thursday.<\/p>\n

She also warned that these laws would give\u00a0Muslim holidays\u00a0additional privileges not afforded to other religions, which could include closing schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople may think this is alarmist, but this is an example of American laws adopting a Sharia law framework,\u201d Barcohana told JNS.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpecial protections no other religious observance receives, the option to shut down public institutions to observe the holiday that, until now, only Christian holidays received and curriculum in public schools that is religious in nature notably about a religion that emphasizes conversion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MuslimsCalifornia joins Washington state in declaring Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha as state holidays, as local schools and businesses could close those days while not required to, while courts will stay open during those holidays. Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n

However, David Bocarsly, CEO of Jewish California, supported Newsom\u2019s actions, saying he was not concerned about the order in which the bills were signed because all three became law.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith more than 1,000 bills in front of him this\u00a0past month, we aren\u2019t concerned with the sequencing of Assembly Bill 395 and Assembly Bill 1763, as long as they got signed, and they did. We\u2019re thrilled to see these two critical religious freedom protections become law and to recognize three Jewish holidays in California statute for the first time,\u201d Bocarsly told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n

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His organization also\u00a0celebrated Newsom\u00a0signing into law SB 1387, which recognizes Jewish identity as an ethnicity.<\/p>\n

Fox News Digital\u00a0reached out to Newsom\u2019s office for comment but did not immediately receive a response.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California Gov.\u00a0Gavin Newsom\u00a0signed into law a bill that formally recognizes two Muslim holidays as state holidays on Sunday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2136,2077,969,5130,1208,9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-362636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-california","tag-gavin-newsom","tag-holidays","tag-legislation","tag-media","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}