Orthodox Jewish organizations are warning that legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives to make daylight saving time permanent would complicate daily religious observance, particularly morning prayers.
The House approved the Sunshine Protection Act on Tuesday by a bipartisan 308-117 vote. The measure, backed by U.S. President Donald Trump, would end the twice-yearly clock changes while allowing states that already qualify for exemptions, such as Arizona and Hawaii, to remain on permanent standard time. The bill now heads to the Senate, where its prospects remain uncertain.
Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), who has introduced the legislation since 2018, called it a “commonsense” reform.
“Permanent daylight saving time will improve public safety, promote healthier and more active lifestyles and give families more daylight to enjoy after work and school,” Buchanan wrote, urging the Senate to send the measure to Trump’s desk.
Rabbi Yaakov Menken, executive vice president of the Coalition for Jewish Values, told JNS that the House vote is “definitely worrisome.”
“Our main objection remains that permanent daylight saving time would disrupt the morning prayer schedule for many Orthodox Jews, making it difficult to pray at the appropriate times and still meet work and school obligations,” he said. “This isn’t just an inconvenience—it would affect daily life and halachic practice for a large segment of the population.”
Menken acknowledged that “many of our allies” support the legislation because they oppose changing clocks twice a year.
“No one is doing this to hurt the Jewish community, but they believe that the switch to daylight saving time every year is itself harmful,” he told JNS. “That’s by no means settled. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine advocates for year-round use of standard time, which would be much less problematic.”
While the coalition is hopeful that the legislation will stall in the Senate, Menken said that “the occasional passage in one house or the other certainly remains a cause for concern.”
Rabbi A.D. Motzen, national director of government affairs at Agudath Israel of America, told JNS that the organization is concerned that the bill would “put children at risk and affect our religious practices.”
“For the Orthodox Jewish community, an unintended, yet compelling, consequence of such legislation is the effect it will have on our fundamental religious practices,” he said. “In Jewish law, morning prayers and the rituals associated with them must be recited no earlier than at specified times. The later sunrise occurs, the later synagogue services must begin.”
“The extension of DST will create an extreme hardship on observant Jews,” Motzen 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.”
Motzen noted that the United States briefly adopted year-round daylight saving time in the 1970s, but Congress repealed the policy following public backlash.
“The popularity of the measure dropped dramatically once Americans experienced one dark winter and Congress had to reverse itself within a year,” he told JNS.
“We are hopeful that the Senate will consider all of the effects of daylight saving time and compare them to the effects of permanent standard time or maintaining the status quo before rushing into this major change,” Motzen said.
Nathan Diament, executive director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, told JNS that the organization shares those concerns. He pointed to a 2022 letter from the group warning that permanent daylight saving time would interfere with congregational prayer schedules while raising “safety issues for children who would be going to school in the pitch dark for many weeks of the year.”
He also cited a 2022 Washington Post article quoting health experts who have warned that year-round daylight saving time would leave people’s sleep cycles more out of sync with natural daylight.
Diament told JNS that “we have allies in the Senate who are firmly opposed to this legislation,” including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).
“We still have work to do, of course,” he said.
