If you take no stock in the main Christian festival of Easter, or if you are a non-Jew who has no interest in atoning in the fall, you have an all-American fighting chance of being able to ignore these events, or of being only briefly subjected to parking restrictions in Manhattan.

WSJ: Christopher Hitchens on Forced Merriment, the True Spirit of Christmas

Although, I am a non-practicing Jew, and abhor the 24-hour fast, I usually fast out of respect for my fellow Jews and to empathize with those suffering in poverty.

FORBES: A Day to Pause and Consider Our Harmful Hatred

Its author, Ruth Harris, is not a devout Christian but, like Ms Medwick, a non-observant Jew.

ECONOMIST: Christian believers