Good morning. It’s Thursday. Today we’ll look at the opposition in some Orthodox Jewish communities to making daylight saving time permanent.
Twice a year, whenever daylight saving time dictates the need to “fall back” or “spring forward,” changing our routines by a precious hour and resulting in much grumbling and grumpiness, the question inevitably arises: Do we truly need to do this? The concept of daylight saving is a historical practice that many credit to Benjamin Franklin, who wanted to move an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening so people could make more use of their days. Governments in the 1800s moved to standardize time, creating time zones, and in 1918, the United States government took over oversight of time zones and began changing clocks. These days, Hawaii, most of Arizona and a handful of U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, abide by standard time year-round and do not change their clocks. And now, U.S. senators are considering passage of the Sunshine Protection Act, a bill that would make daylight saving time permanent and would no longer require the twice-yearly time change. One of the most vocal groups opposed to this proposed law, my colleague Maya King writes, is Orthodox Jews. Leaders of prominent national Orthodox Jewish organizations have spent the weeks before Congress’s monthlong summer recess lobbying dozens of senators in Washington on the issue. The Sabbath begins on Friday at sunset and continues through Saturday until sunset — and so the timing of when the sun sets has religious implications, they say. Orthodox leaders say that making daylight saving time permanent would disturb their community rituals and create logistical problems for Jews who work or attend school in the winter, when sunrise and sunset — which coincide with morning and evening prayers — would occur an hour later. New York, home to the country’s largest Orthodox Jewish population, would expect to see the greatest disruptions if the country were forced to sacrifice twice-yearly time changes, Maya reports. Orthodox Jewish leaders have joined forces with many groups who are similarly opposed to the legislation, including other faith leaders, industry groups, sleep experts and farm workers. Maya spoke with David Greenfield, a former city councilman and the chief executive and executive director of the Met Council, which fights poverty in New York’s Jewish communities, who pointed out that the bill’s advancement created “the unusual coalition of the Hasidic Jew from Brooklyn and the farmer from South Dakota, who are working together to try to stop this legislation.” Congress has passed legislation making daylight saving time permanent before, but it was short-lived after parents in 1974 raised concerns about increased traffic accidents involving children during dark daytime hours. In 2005, Congress voted to extend daylight saving time by one month. The current measure faces an unclear path, with several senators hesitating to support it or saying they would vote against it. President Trump — no fan of changing the clock — has lobbied Republican lawmakers to support the measure. But while making daylight saving time permanent would disrupt the daily schedules of Orthodox Jews in New York, some leaders acknowledged that adjusting to it might be difficult — but not impossible. “There are people who live in Jewish communities farther north than we do, and they figure out a way to accommodate it,” said Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz, who is the senior rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Should the bill become law, he said, “everyone can figure out how to accommodate it.” WEATHER Expect mostly cloudy conditions, possible showers and thunderstorms, and temperatures near 78. Cloudy conditions will continue tonight with a low around 68. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until Aug. 15 (Feast of the Assumption). QUOTE OF THE DAY “It’s like a collective trauma.” — Juliane Douds, one of hundreds of young adults who gathered in Central Park to revive the progressive aerobic cardiovascular endurance run, a childhood fitness assessment that many of them once hated. The latest New York news
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Dear Diary: When I was 13, my father, the deputy metropolitan editor of The New York Times, was invited by Rudolf Bing, the Metropolitan Opera’s formidable general manager, to sit in his box for a performance of “Carmen” in the Met’s glittering new home at Lincoln Center. My father brought my mother and me along. As the legendary mezzo soprano Grace Bumbry was singing the Habanera, two know-it-all Europeans in the next box began to boo. Bing was livid. He leaped to his feet, ran from his box to theirs and threw them out. As a young sophisticate who thought he had already seen a lot, I was much more excited to see this than the action on the stage. Little did I know that four decades later, I would become the Met’s 16th general manager — and that it would be me inviting my father to sit in the general manager’s box. Retired as an editor, he would enjoy attending morning final dress rehearsals of new productions, mingling with the knowledgeable older patrons during intermissions and eavesdropping on their comments. Not surprisingly, the comments from these patrons were largely negative since many of them resented change from the old-style productions they had grown to love. Nonetheless, my father wouldn’t hesitate to fully brief me on what he had heard. Once a journalist, always a journalist. — Peter Gelb Mr. Gelb is the director of the Metropolitan Opera. His father, Arthur Gelb, created Metropolitan Diary. Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. — C.F. Davaughnia Wilson and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
