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Jewish group revives religious charter school fight in Oklahoma, months after test case stalled at Supreme Court

(JTA) — Months after a Supreme Court deadlock blocked an attempt by a Catholic church to create the nation’s first openly religious, publicly funded charter school, a Jewish group is now advancing a similar plan — one designed to sidestep the legal obstacles that doomed the first case.

The National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation has notified an Oklahoma state board that it intends to apply for a statewide virtual high school integrating Oklahoma academic standards with daily Jewish religious studies.

Local Jewish leaders say they were blindsided by the proposal and argue that such a school isn’t needed. But getting approval is not what the applicants are expecting.

Instead, the group’s legal team — led by Becket, a prominent nonprofit religious-liberty law firm — is preparing for the state board to reject the application, setting the stage for a federal lawsuit and, potentially, a precedent-setting ruling at the Supreme Court.

Anticipating that the application will likely be denied, “we would represent Ben Gamla challenging that decision in the federal courts in Oklahoma,” Eric Baxter, a vice president and general counsel at Becket, said in an interview.

Baxter said Ben Gamla expects to submit the application by the end of the year.

The resulting case could become the next major test of whether the Constitution permits government funding to establish religious charter schools. It would resolve a question the Supreme Court failed to decide when it deadlocked 4-4 last spring in the Catholic case, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case, reportedly because of her longstanding personal and professional ties to a Notre Dame law professor who had advised the petitioner in its early stages.

St. Isidore, backed by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa, focused on school funding but it came amid a broader effort led by conservatives to weaken the legal doctrine of church-state separation. While many of the largest Jewish groups — including the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Union for Reform Judaism — have long championed a strictly secular public sphere as a safeguard for minorities, an increasingly vocal contingent has advocated for greater public funding for private Jewish day schools.

One of the most prominent opponents of public funding for religious education is Rachel Laser, a former leader in Reform Judaism who now heads Americans United for Separation of Church and State. She argues that efforts to erode church-state deportation ultimately serve to advance the domination of Christianity in government.

“As a Jew and the leader of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, I feel obligated to point out that such a case would be using Jews to advance a Christian Nationalist agenda that is not ultimately in Jews’ best interest,” Laser said.

The Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board approved the St. Isidore school in 2023, prompting immediate litigation led by the state attorney general, who argued that a religious charter school was unconstitutional.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court agreed, ruling that charter schools are “state actors” required to remain secular. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which seemed poised, based on the conservative composition of the court and the oral arguments preceding the ruling, to consider overturning longstanding limits on taxpayer-funded religious schooling.

But in May, the justices deadlocked, and the tie allowed the Oklahoma ruling to stand.

Now Ben Gamla, backed by a former Democrat congressman, aims to resurrect the issue, using a new legal pathway. The group will not sue in state court, bypassing the state Supreme Court ruling against St. Isidore, but in federal court, where they believe they will prevail.

By framing Oklahoma’s refusal as a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause, Ben Gamla hopes to build on recent Supreme Court rulings holding that states may not exclude religious organizations from generally available public benefits solely because they are religious.

“The school should be allowed there under existing Supreme Court precedent,” Baxter said. “The court has already previously ruled that in ways that make it clear it cannot exclude a charter school just because it’s religious.”

Ben Gamla is a newly formed Oklahoma nonprofit led by former Democratic congressman Peter Deutsch, who surprised many by endorsing Trump in 2024, citing his stances on Israel and education policy.

Deutsch previously founded a network of Hebrew-English charter schools in Florida with the aim of combating Jewish assimilation, though those schools, unlike the Oklahoma proposal, were required to operate as strictly secular institutions.

His aspirations led Deutsch to look beyond Florida — including to Oklahoma. After St. Isidore was initially approved in 2023, he traveled to the state and explored applying for a Jewish charter school of his own, telling JTA last February that the Catholic effort could be “a paradigm shift for American Jews.”

But he said that after speaking with local rabbis and parents, he decided the state’s Jewish community was too small to sustain such a brick-and-mortar school. The proposal for a virtual Ben Gamla school marks a shift: Whatever the local demand, the project is now positioned as a legal vehicle to test the constitutional question nationwide.

Deutsch declined to be interviewed for this story, directing all questions to Becket.

According to its letter of intent, filed Nov. 3 with Oklahoma’s charter board, the proposed Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School would operate as a statewide virtual high school for grades 9-12 and open with roughly 40 students in the 2026-27 school year. The school plans to offer daily courses in Jewish texts, practices, ethics and other forms of religious study.

The school would deliver “Oklahoma’s state-approved academic standards alongside Jewish religious studies, enabling students to achieve college readiness while developing deep Jewish knowledge, faith, and values within a supportive learning community,” the letter says.

The founding team includes Brett Farley, the executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma and a former St. Isidore board member.

The new proposal immediately triggered a response from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which had led litigation against St. Isidore.

Last week, the organization announced that it had filed Oklahoma Open Records Act requests seeking all communications between the state charter board and Ben Gamla. Americans United argues the proposed school is unconstitutional.

“Despite their loss earlier this year in the U.S. Supreme Court, religious extremists once again are trying to undermine our country’s promise of church-state separation by forcing Oklahoma taxpayers to fund a religious public school. Not on our watch,” Laser, the president of Americans United, said in a statement.

Within the Jewish community, the Ben Gamla plan lands in the middle of longstanding divisions over public funding for Jewish religious education.

Orthodox-affiliated organizations, including the Orthodox Union and its affiliated Teach Coalition, have supported efforts to loosen restrictions, arguing that Jews should not be penalized for choosing religious schooling. Several conservative Jewish groups backed St. Isidore’s Supreme Court petition.

Deutsch supports lowering the wall between church and state, at least when it comes to education funding, citing low levels of Jewish knowledge and rising assimilation among American Jews.

“If you think Jewish peoplehood and faith have value in terms of continuity, looking at American Jews today and saying that’s a success story today is absurd,” he told JTA in February. “Clearly, Jewish individuals have done extraordinarily well, but the Jewish community is in a death spiral. The only way to prevent what’s happening is through education.”

In Oklahoma, where  the Jewish population is estimated at fewer than 9,000 people, the proposal has drawn skepticism from local Jewish leaders — including those who say they first learned about it not from organizers, but from reporters.

Rabbi Daniel Kaiman, who leads Congregation B’nai Emunah in Tulsa, said he was surprised to discover that an application was being pursued “in the name of the Jewish community” even though, he said, no one he is aware of in the community had been consulted.

“I was surprised to be learning about it through a reporter,” he said. “When I called around to other Jewish leaders in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, none of us knew anything about it.”

Kaiman said he opposes the proposal and worries about the implications of a national legal campaign being waged through a tiny Jewish community that has to manage delicate relationships with state officials and interfaith partners.

“As a Jewish community in Oklahoma, we are an extreme minority,” he said. “I don’t know if this is the type of political attention our Jewish community would have asked for — and I wasn’t asked. Anything that could threaten the key relationships we have with our neighbors and with state leadership is something we need to think about very carefully.”

He added that he is uneasy about being thrust into a public debate that pits one Jewish group against another.

“I don’t love the fact that this forces me to be speaking, even potentially, in opposition to another Jewish group,” he said. “That doesn’t feel very good.”

Kaiman also questioned the underlying practicality of a Jewish charter school in a state with such a small Jewish population, and noted that existing Jewish educational institutions — including a day school, preschools and synagogue-based programs — already meet the community’s needs.

The local Jewish community is tight-knit and exceptionally charitable, a dynamic shaped in part by local oil and gas wealth that has given it an outsized impact on the wider Jewish world through philanthropies.

“We have robust educational offerings for Jewish kids in Oklahoma,” Kaiman said. “I don’t know who this new proposal is for.”

Still, he was careful to leave space for ongoing conversation within the community.

“We really value Jewish education, and maybe this is a good idea,” he said. “But it’s hard to learn about it through public discourse alone. Partnership and conversation would be a better way forward.”

The post Jewish group revives religious charter school fight in Oklahoma, months after test case stalled at Supreme Court appeared first on The Forward.

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Mamdani orders review of whether New York can arrest Netanyahu when he visits this fall

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has revived one of his most controversial election promises, raising once again the prospect of arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he comes to New York in September for the United Nations General Assembly. It’s a move that legal experts say Mamdani is unlikely to be able to carry out.

In a video interview with The New York Times published Saturday, Mamdani said he ordered a review by the city’s Law Department to consider his options to comply with an International Criminal Court arrest warrant. “Whatever the law allows me to do in New York City, that’s what we will do. But we won’t be writing our own laws to that end,” Mamdani said, remarks that drew a strong online reaction.

In a post to social media on Sunday, Netanyahu’s office dismissed concerns of a possible arrest, calling the ICC a “kangaroo court” and saying that “Mamdani should focus on fixing the damage his policies have caused New York.” In an interview last week, Netanyahu said Mamdani “hates America.”

The United States does not recognize the court’s authority over American citizens or foreign nationals on U.S. soil, and the federal government could likely challenge the legitimacy of such an order.

Mamdani’s statement reflects the tension that has defined his first months in office: balancing the activist politics that propelled him to City Hall with the legal constraints and governing responsibilities of the mayor of the city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel.

A political gift to Netanyahu

Mamdani’s actions could have unintended consequences abroad.

Former U.S. ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, who has frequently criticized Netanyahu, warned that even a failed attempt to arrest the prime minister would likely strengthen Netanyahu politically in a tough reelection bid, set for Oct. 27.

“Many Israelis are sick of him and hope to vote him out,” Shapiro wrote on X. “The only possible outcome of a fruitless attempt to arrest him in NYC would be to give him a political boost at home. That would be an own goal.”

Recent polls show that Netanyahu, seeking a seventh term in office, is trailing an opposition bloc led by two contenders — former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot.

A confrontation with New York’s outspoken anti-Zionist mayor could allow Netanyahu to cast himself once again as Israel’s defender against international efforts to isolate and punish the country. Netanyahu already labeled Mamdani as someone who “champions” Hamas and “apologizes” for Iran.

That message could resonate even with Israelis who oppose him. American Jewish opinion illustrates the same complexity. While recent polling shows many American Jews view Netanyahu unfavorably, and that Mamdani is more popular with that group, that has not translated into support for an attempt to arrest Israel’s elected leader.

A Honan Strategy Group poll in December found that although 40% of New York City voters believed Mamdani had a moral obligation to uphold international human rights standards by ordering Netanyahu’s arrest, seven in 10 of the 131 Jewish respondents said doing so would damage New York’s global standing.

In the end, Mamdani may be able to avoid acting at all by pointing to the legal opinion that New York City lacks the authority to arrest Netanyahu.

The law is not on Mamdani’s side 

A photo of Netanyahu speaking from a podium.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during the United Nations General Assembly on September 26, 2025 in New York City. Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

The ICC, based in The Hague, issued arrest warrants in Nov. 2024 for Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity related to the Israel-Hamas war. Hamas confirmed in Jan. 2025 that Deif was assassinated in July 2024 by an Israeli strike on Gaza.

But even if Mamdani wanted to enforce the warrant, New York City has little authority to do so.

Because the United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court, the NYPD has no legal authority to arrest Netanyahu based on an ICC warrant. Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio launched a sweeping campaign of sanctions, visa bans and diplomatic pressure to “systematically disable” the ICC “brick by brick.”

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz, in a post on X, also pointed to the 1947 U.N. Headquarters Agreement, which requires the United States to allow accredited foreign representatives to attend U.N. meetings, as well as the customary international law doctrine that grants immunity to sitting heads of government traveling on official business. Netanyahu would also arrive in New York under Secret Service protection afforded to foreign leaders.

Even carrying out such an order would appear unlikely.

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who is Jewish, has repeatedly kept a distance from the mayor on Israel-related issues. Her public statements on Israel have been unequivocal. In June, Tisch served as grand marshal of the annual Celebrate Israel Parade, which Mamdani skipped. “I understand that for many of you, having a Jewish police commissioner is deeply comforting,” she told Jewish leaders in May.

Mamdani’s foreign policy reach has already been limited. Last month, the U.S. State Department blocked a planned meeting between Mamdani and Colombian President Gustavo Petro in New York, a fierce Israel critic, who had his visa revoked last fall after he appeared at a pro-Palestinian rally in Manhattan and was attending a UN Security Council session under strict terms. Earlier this month, the Trump administration stopped a meeting between Ana María Archila, Mamdani’s commissioner for international affairs, and Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations.

Why does Mamdani keep talking about it?

Congressional candidate Brad Lander with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Palestinian activist Moshen Mahdaw on June 14. Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

While the legal answer is largely settled, the political one is not.

By keeping the question open, Mamdani signals support to the pro-Palestinian movement that fueled his rise, while acknowledging the institutional limits of his office.

Targeting Netanyahu was central to Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. After leading chants of “Netanyahu, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,” during a protest in Oct. 2023, Mamdani first pledged to arrest Netanyahu shortly after he declared his candidacy. He later repeated the pledge, including in front of Jewish audiences, arguing that he did not want New York to be a place where leaders accused of war crimes felt welcome.

The approach follows a similar pattern Mamdani confronted with a politically charged issue earlier this year. As anti-Jewish incidents continue to make up a majority of reported hate crimes, the city considered placing buffer zones around houses of worship, spurred in part by a November protest outside the Park East Synagogue that included antisemitic slogans.

After expressing reservations about the legislation, Mamdani referred the bill to the city’s Law Department before ultimately allowing it to become law without his signature, only after the City Council passed it with a veto-proof majority.

Mamdani vetoed a companion bill that would potentially limit pro-Palestinian demonstrations, particularly on campuses. (The council later passed a modified version, and the state passed a 50-foot buffer zone bill that equally applies to all community centers and schools being used for services, education and religious observance across the state.)

Mamdani’s real test

Whether Mamdani’s careful balancing act satisfies either side may become clear when Netanyahu arrives in New York this September.

While the mayor cannot dictate U.S. foreign policy or enforce ICC warrants, City Hall still plays an important role in coordinating logistics, demonstrations and municipal services during the annual gathering of world leaders.

Mamdani can influence how unwelcoming New York feels to the Israeli leader.

The Israeli prime minister’s appearance at the United Nations is expected to draw massive demonstrations, putting City Hall’s handling of protests and policing under intense scrutiny.

History suggests that symbolism matters.

In 1995, Mayor Rudy Giuliani triggered a diplomatic dispute after ejecting Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat from a United Nations anniversary concert at Lincoln Center. President Bill Clinton, protesting the move, invited the Palestinian leader to a White House reception.

For all the attention given to Netanyahu’s return to New York, he may not arrive alone. During a White House meeting last year, Netanyahu laughed off the threat as “silly” and quipped that he might travel to New York “with President Trump.” Trump responded: “I’ll get him out.”

Now, that exchange may prove to have been less a joke than a preview of where the real power lies.

The post Mamdani orders review of whether New York can arrest Netanyahu when he visits this fall appeared first on The Forward.

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A Jewish couple fell in love with rural Oklahoma. Then they built a cemetery there.

Linda Fitzerman did not want her children making burial decisions through tears.

For years, she and her husband, Todd Boone Fitzerman, told each other they needed to settle the question. They were not interested in cremation. They wanted a traditional Jewish burial. And they did not want their children, someday, to face the cost and pressure of deciding where that burial should take place.

“They just need to show up and cry,” Linda said. “They don’t need the additional pain of having to make financial decisions.”

The answer, when it came, was not one they had expected. They created a small Jewish burial ground in Sulphur, Oklahoma, a city of about 5,000 people in the Bible Belt, near the ranch the Fitzermans bought during the pandemic and had come to love.

At Oak Lawn Cemetery, a city-owned burial ground with green grass, rolling terrain and ponds, the Fitzermans purchased a group of plots to create a circular family burial section. Four corner pillars crowned with Stars of David mark the site. Beneath the grass, the pillars are connected by buried rebar, creating a distinct boundary around the section. Linda designed the stainless steel Stars of David, which a friend welded into place.

Nearby, five young trees are taking root: two Chinese pistache trees and three Autumn Blaze maples. The Fitzermans planted them with the city’s permission and have been carefully tending them for the past year, using large water barrels to help them through the early seasons.

“We are babysitting them for at least two years,” Linda said.

The burial section was dedicated in 2025. Todd’s brother, Rabbi Marc Boone Fitzerman of Tulsa, advised them on how to create a designated Jewish space within a public cemetery. Psalms and other prayers were recited at the site. There was no minyan, Todd said, but “spiritually we are there.”

To the Fitzermans’ knowledge, no other Jew is buried in Oak Lawn Cemetery.

The Jewish cemetery space at Oak Lawn Cemetery in Sulphur, Oklahoma.
The Jewish cemetery space at Oak Lawn Cemetery in Sulphur, Oklahoma. Courtesy of Todd Boone Fitzerman

A pandemic, and a plan

The cemetery project grew out of a life they did not plan to build in Oklahoma. Todd, 67, and Linda, 65, are both from the Detroit area and were raised in Conservative families. They met in Dallas when their children were young and have been married for 24 years. Dallas remains home. The couple still runs a business there, Local Oven, a gluten-free baking company.

But during the long uncertainty of the COVID pandemic, they began thinking about land.

“We felt so bottled up, and we wanted to get out,” Linda said.

They first responded to an advertisement for 10 acres near water in Texas. The search widened. Todd’s son suggested that 50 acres would be enough room to shoot on the property. Eventually, Todd found 158 acres outside Davis, Oklahoma, about two hours north of Dallas. They began building a working ranch. Todd’s son keeps cattle there. The Fitzermans now divide their time between Dallas and Oklahoma, spending roughly half the week in each place.

“It is a beautiful ranch,” Linda said. “It’s very calming to be out here, really beautiful, nothing like the city.”

Todd described hearing coyotes at night, watching the cattle roam, and the pleasure of “playing cowboy” for part of the week. Linda said she had not known, when they bought the land in 2021, “how important Oklahoma was going to be.”

“It was never a plan,” she said. “It just sort of evolved.”

Their relationship with the area deepened through the people they met there. Todd and Linda said one local friend, who lives across from Oak Lawn Cemetery and owns a large construction company, helped introduce them around Sulphur when they were new. He had also acquired plots in the cemetery through a trade arrangement for excavation work. Seeing what he had done opened a possibility they had not considered.

For years, Linda said, they had found “nothing intriguing” in Dallas cemeteries. Many Jewish plots cost $7,000 or $8,000. One cemetery with a Jewish section had plots priced around $36,000.

“Why would I spend money like that?” Linda said.

In Sulphur, plots were $300 each. For $4,500 total, they could create a family burial place tailored to them.

“We finally had an opportunity that just presented itself,” Linda said.

The circle layout itself came from her memory. In Michigan, she said, part of her family is buried in an older Jewish cemetery arranged not in straight rows, but in a circular shape.

“I thought that was really nice,” she said. “I liked it.”

So Linda and Todd approached the city and asked whether they could create a Jewish cemetery section in Oak Lawn. The response, they said, was strikingly easy.

“We shared that with the city and they said, ‘Yeah, sure,’” Linda said. “I’ve never seen any place give me the green light on every question.”

The city’s one practical concern was that everything remain level enough for its crews to mow. It allowed the Fitzermans to select the location, a corner where two cemetery roads meet. It also permitted them to plant the trees on easement land beside the plots.

“The city is 100% accepting,” Linda said.

Todd put it similarly. “The city could not have been more accommodating,” he said.

The Fitzermans say their religion has never been a problem. “It is the Baptist Bible Belt,” Linda said. “Everyone here has been so willing to accept us. They are inquisitive and curious. Our religion has not been an issue for anyone.”

Todd said that not everyone in Sulphur knows they are Jewish, “but lots of people know we are Jews.” When Todd’s son held his Jewish wedding on the ranch, he said, many non-Jewish guests had never attended one before. Friends asked questions. Guests wore kippot or cowboy hats. Tallitot belonging to Todd, his father and his son’s other grandfather formed the wedding canopy.

“There were more Jews in Sulphur for my son’s wedding than ever before,” Todd said.

Peace of mind

For Linda, the cemetery’s Jewish symbols were important. She wanted the pillars to be easy to find. More than that, she wanted them to say plainly what the site was.

“When we see the pillars, they reflect what we are doing, which is our religion,” she said. “Nothing is more stately than the Jewish star.”

“Our little decor, to me, sends a really beautiful statement,” she added. “I’ve always been proud to be Jewish. I wouldn’t want to be buried any other way.”

The Fitzermans have tried to spare their children as much uncertainty as possible. They have assigned the burial titles to their children and their children’s partners, while making clear that use of the plots will remain their choice. They have also documented the practical steps to follow when the time comes, including where a body could be prepared for Jewish burial in Dallas or Oklahoma City.

“You don’t think about it until a family member is going through it,” Linda said.

She views the cemetery as a natural extension of family care. “You are always, always part of your family,” she said. “If you want these, they are there for you.”

Todd described the burial ground in similar terms. It offers “peace of mind,” he said: a final resting place in a community they love and want to be part of.

The trees, Linda noted, will eventually grow large. The Chinese pistache trees can grow to over 25 feet with age. The maples, she said, will be especially beautiful in the fall.

They hope it will be many years before the cemetery is needed.

But the question that had lingered for so long has now been answered. Their children will not have to find a plot, compare prices, choose a cemetery, or wonder whether their parents’ burial wishes were honored.

They will only have to come.

And cry.

The post A Jewish couple fell in love with rural Oklahoma. Then they built a cemetery there. appeared first on The Forward.

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Why Orthodox Jews are pushing back against permanent daylight saving time

(JTA) — For many Orthodox Jews, a typical winter weekday begins early: head to synagogue, gather in a minyan for morning prayers, then rush off to work.

Orthodox Jewish groups say a bill that would make daylight saving time permanent could upend that routine by pushing winter sunrises — and the earliest permissible time for some prayers — an hour later.

Agudath Israel of America is among the groups urging the Senate to reject legislation that would make daylight saving time permanent nationwide, arguing that the change would create both public safety risks and significant challenges for Orthodox Jewish religious life.

The House passed the Sunshine Protection Act on Tuesday by a wide bipartisan margin. In a statement issued after the vote, Agudath Israel said it understood the appeal of ending the twice-yearly clock changes but opposed making daylight saving time permanent.

The Orthodox advocacy organization warned that permanent daylight saving time would push winter sunrises past 9 a.m. in some parts of the country, forcing many children to travel to school before dawn. It also said the later sunrise would make it difficult for observant Jews to attend morning synagogue services and still arrive at work or school on time, because Jewish law prohibits reciting key morning prayers before prescribed times tied to sunrise.

“The extension of DST will create an extreme hardship on observant Jews,” the organization said. “It would be extraordinarily difficult — if not impossible — to arrive on time for a job and will affect the start time of our schools.”

The Orthodox Union and the Coalition for Jewish Values have also come out against the measure.

In a column for Chabad.org that didn’t take a position on the bill, Menachem Posner also wrote that the change would present a challenge in parts of the country for morning minyan, the 10-person prayer quorum. But he also noted an upside to the extension of daylight saving: a later start time for Shabbat on short winter Fridays.

Shabbat begins at sundown, which during the winter can fall before 4:00 p.m. in parts of the country. “With DST, however, this will be shifted one hour later, so that even on the darkest day of winter, Jews will have one more hour to prepare for Shabbat,” Posner wrote.

Orthodox parties in Israel have also made an issue of changes to the daylight saving calendar. In 2011, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet unanimously approved extending daylight saving time until the first Sunday after Oct. 1, despite objections from haredi parties. The change brought Israel’s clock closer to European practice while still acknowledging Orthodox concerns about morning prayer and a later start time to Yom Kippur that they argued would make the fast more difficult.

This week Agudath Israel also pointed to the brief U.S. experiment with year-round daylight saving time during the 1970s energy crisis, when Congress repealed the policy after widespread public dissatisfaction over dark winter mornings.

The organization said it hoped the Senate would weigh the broader consequences of permanent daylight saving time, including alternatives such as permanent standard time or retaining the current system of seasonal clock changes.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Why Orthodox Jews are pushing back against permanent daylight saving time appeared first on The Forward.

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