Hil, it's a religious holiday.  If you can't find someone to cover your classes that day because of the cut, can't you just go to the head and say, everyone's overloaded, I can't find anyone to cover, and I need to observance Rosh Hoshanah. I'm cancelling my classes that day. 
I mean, it's a major religious holiday -- what's s/he going to say? Unless you have a big track record of cancelling classes, I think a department head would be REAl hinky about saying "Uh, you can't take time off to observe your faith's major holiday after making a good-faith effort to find coverage." 
	
 
		
		
 That's not the wtf part. So, we are in huge budgetary woes state wide, so what they do? Give a modest, system wide, 3%ish merit raise. Huh? Um. Ok. I'll happily take it, since they just raised our parking and health insurance. But paint me confused. 
Dang. I think I'm ineligible (anyone who's gotten an increase for any reason since 1/1/11 is excluded, so the job change in August rules me out). But it'll be a huge relief for so many people I know. And thank God they're also excluding all upper management. 
	
 
		
		
Hil, it's a religious holiday. If you can't find someone to cover your classes that day because of the cut, can't you just go to the head and say, everyone's overloaded, I can't find anyone to cover, and I need to observance Rosh Hoshanah. I'm cancelling my classes that day. 
I would do that -- in fact I did do that last year -- but the day I'll miss is a Friday, and my students have their first midterm the following Monday, so I want them to be able to ask questions on Friday.  (Well, the non-Jewish ones, anyway.  Whoever scheduled this midterm didn't think too much about when the holidays were.)
	
 
		
		
Andi, all kinds of ~ma to you and Daniel. 
	
 
		
		
What ChiKat said. I hope Daniel's OK. 
	
 
		
		
Tons of ~ma for Daniel and for you too, Andi. Let us know if there is anything we can do.
	
 
		
		
Much ~ma for you and Daniel, Andi.
	
 
		
		
Lots of ~ma for Daniel and Andi.
	
 
		
		
Much ~ma to Daniel and Andi and Daniel's medical team up in the cities. Sure hands, wise heads, and healing. 
	
 
		
		
Poor, Daniel. What an arduous trawl through the medical system. Lots of healing-ma for him.