House advances bill to make daylight saving time permanent
The House of Representatives moved to allow states to enact daylight saving time year-round.
Each morning before work or school, Orthodox Jews recite the first of three daily prayers, whether alone or gathered at a synagogue in fellowship. Men don ritual shawls and leather prayer boxes, the time of the prayer dictated not by a clock but by the rising of the sun.
“The later the morning is, the later that prayers can be taking place,” said Rabbi A.D. Motzen, national director of government affairs for Agudath Israel of America, an organization representing Orthodox Jews.
That’s why many Orthodox Jews, he said, are concerned about the prospect of proposed legislation that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent.
Introduced by Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Florida, the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025 would institute permanent Daylight Saving Time for most states, meaning the majority of Americans would no longer have to “spring forward” or “fall back” – the twice-a-year task of adjusting their clocks, watches and other timepieces.
The legislation is currently before the U.S. Senate after being overwhelmingly passed by the House of Representatives, 308-117. It has the support of President Donald Trump, who has called seasonal clock changes “ridiculous.”
Much of Jewish practice is tied to the calendar, and more specifically sunrise and sunset, said Rabbi Josh Joseph of the Orthodox Union, the country’s largest Orthodox Jewish organization. Those events dictate morning and evening prayer times and the start and end times for Shabbat and holidays, he said.
“Many Jews gather each morning in synagogues for morning prayer,” said Joseph, the organization’s executive vice president and chief operating officer. “If sunrise is pushed back an hour, services can’t begin until an hour later.”
During winter months, he said, that would negatively affect the day’s start for many, complicating efforts to get to work or school on time – particularly in the Midwest and mountain states, where sunrise in some places would be pushed well past 8 a.m. for long stretches, disrupting a fundamental religious practice of observant Jewish communities.
“The times for prayers and their accompanying rituals will be thrown into disarray – which, in turn, will put into jeopardy their proper fulfillment, discourage synagogue attendance, and result in late arrival for work,” reads a letter sent by Agudath Israel to Congressional offices. “Jewish religious and professional life will be deeply upended.”
A chart compiled by the organization, which is urging Senators to oppose or amend the bill, lists U.S. cities and how they would be affected by the law if passed.
“California is least affected, but go to Indiana or Michigan and the reality is harsher,” Motzen said. “In most places where Orthodox Jews live, sunrise would be after 8 o’clock. In L.A., it would only be 10 days a year – but in South Bend, Indiana, it’s close to 150 days a year.”
For 55 of those days, he said, sunlight wouldn’t appear on South Bend’s horizon until after 9 o’clock. In Helena, Montana, a post-9 a.m. sunrise would occur 50 days a year; in Boise, Idaho, 64; and in Bismarck, North Dakota, 75.
“This change would severely disrupt Jewish morning rituals, which require the arrival of natural dawn,” wrote Rabbi Yosef Chaim Danziger of South Bend’s Hebrew Orthodox Congregation in a letter opposing the legislation. “Such late sunrises would make the timing of prayer incompatible with the start of the typical school and workday, placing an undue burden on our many highly productive community members.”
How morning prayer could be disrupted
Daylight Saving Time currently occurs from March to November, with most U.S. residents – except those in the states of Arizona and Hawaii, as well as territories like Guam and Puerto Rico, which don’t observe it – moving their clocks forward an hour to prolong evening daylight. Passage of the Sunshine Protection Act would mean no longer setting clocks back during winter months to encompass more daylight in the morning.
Winter sunrises would happen later, producing darker mornings for swaths of the country. Supporters tout the benefit of later sunsets, allowing for more evening activities in addition to eliminating the twice-a-year task of changing clocks.
Opposition, however, has come from many parents who worry about the safety of children walking to school or waiting for a bus in the darkness of pre-dawn mornings. Some health professionals and sleep organizations also caution that the change would conflict with the body’s circadian rhythms.
For Orthodox Jews, who according to the Pew Research Center comprise nearly one in 10 Jews living in the United States, children’s safety is likewise a concern. On average, Orthodox Jews have twice as many kids as non-Orthodox Jews, according to the center.
But such worries are compounded by the act’s potential disruption of Shacharit, the set of morning prayers serving as a spiritual preparation for the day.
“Every individual is supposed to do morning prayer, but there are certain ones, those with great religious significance, that can only be said when there’s a quorum,” Motzen said.
Participating in communal morning prayers, which require a quorum of 10 men and can’t start until shortly before sunrise, would have to be weighed against work and school obligations and commuting arrangements.
“A synagogue will struggle to gather 10 men, or it may mean that people wouldn’t be able to start their jobs or open their businesses on time,” Motzen said. “It would really disrupt the lives of many people.”
Some may decide to forgo communal prayer and instead pray at their workplaces, he said, missing out on the benefits of fellowship and placing communal experiences at risk.
Similar worries trouble Muslim communities, whose mandatory morning recitations conclude precisely at dawn.
It’s unclear whether the Senate will tackle the issue before it breaks for a five-week recess on Aug. 7. And maybe, Motzen suggests, summer isn’t the best time to be voting on such things anyway.
“Nobody’s thinking about cold winter mornings,” he said. “They’re thinking about an extra hour to play football or enjoy the sun on the beach. They’re not thinking about going to school or waiting for a bus, and they’re definitely not thinking about North Dakota.”
Contributing: Zachary Schermele and Saman Shafiq, USA TODAY
