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NC Pride Organizers Apologize Over Yom Kippur Conflict

Participants in a 2013 Pride Parade in Charlotte. Credit: Flickr user Ken Fager for Creative Commons http://bit.ly/2tMjoa8

An LGBT group in North Carolina is apologizing over a scheduling conflict with a major Jewish holiday.

For the past 17 years, NC Pride has held their annual Pride Parade and Festival on the last Saturday of September. But this year the event falls on September 30th, which is the same day as the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. That means thousands of people won't be able to participate because of the conflict.

Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, is one of the Jewish community's holiest days of the year.

NC Pride organizers, who are all volunteers, say they're devastated about the timing. They posted a note on the event website asking for forgiveness, and saying they look forward to their Jewish friends participating in future years.

The Jewish Federation is now looking to coordinate a separate pride event in October.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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