Hello?

[rhu]

The press coverage of the Congressional impasse seemed to say that among the reasons for the delay in coming to a resolution was Rosh Hashanah.

That ought to be ridiculous. There's no reason why Jewish Members of Congress couldn't arrange for a vatikin service at sunrise, be done by 9:30am, and get to work.

Comments

Surely you're not saying that...

[jikamens.livejournal.com]

... hammering out a financial bailout bill is an appropriate way for religious Jews to spend Rosh Hashanah?

Would Christian members of Congress be expected to "get to work" on a bailout bill on Easter Sunday?

Getting a bailout bill passed today, rather than tomorrow, is not a matter of pikuach nefesh. I fail to see why it can't wait a day so that religious Jews can properly observe the holiday.

Re: Surely you're not saying that...

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

You have made three separate points, which I'll address separately (and quickly).

Your first point was the question of whether negotiating this bill would be appropriate on Rosh Hashanah. My response is that it would not involve the violation of any of the 39 melachot; the discussion of business issues is a Rabbinic fence around the actual exchange of money which is a fence around writing. Furthermore, the Rabbis established an exception to that fence-around-a-fence for discussing the financial needs of the community (and thus, for example, we can have the Kol Nidre appeal). So while negotiating a bill such as this is not something that would normally be done on Yom Tov, I think that if the situation is pressing (as I believe this one is), then Rosh Hashanah should not be an obstacle to meeting the needs of the community.

Your second point deals with the question of how pressing the crisis is. I believe that it is very pressing, although ironically the longer this drags out the less damage we can repair and the less pressing it becomes. We will see plenty of honest, hardworking people lose their businesses because they can no longer get bridge loans; we will see a flight of capital from the United States that will never come back; and as a result we will see more people unable to afford the necessities of life. This is not a case of imminent pikuach nefesh; if it were, the question of whether negotiations on Rosh Hashanah violate halacha would be moot. But as I argued above, this is not such a case, and I do believe that the damage to our country (and the world) justifies setting aside our cultural sense of Yom Tov propriety and having our elected representatives (and, as fauxklore points out below, their staffs) serve our community by undertaking the responsibilities for which they were elected, in a halachically defensible way.

Your third point is about whether Christians would be expected to work on Easter Sunday. It depends. The fact is that our country is predominantly Christian, and (for example) the bourses are closed on Sundays; so an exactly analogous situation is unlikely to arise. But if there were a terrorist attack on Good Friday, and Congress needed to respond immediately (with the War Powers Act that's a less compelling example, but humor me) then I'd assume that they would, in fact, be expected to high-tail it to Capitol Hill and do what needs doing.

Re: Surely you're not saying that...

[sethg]

More immediately, state and local governments have discovered in the past few weeks that they couldn't float bonds to cover routine projects like road construction. (Well, I suppose they could have sold the bonds if they were willing to offer credit-card-like interest rates.) So the crisis is hitting "Main Street" already.

Re: Surely you're not saying that...

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Indeed, there was an item in yesterday's WSJ about a concrete manufacturer who was shutting down their factory and laying off 100 workers because they have no orders for the next six weeks.

There was also an item about 1,000 colleges who are facing shutdowns (as in send the kids home 'cause we can't pay the teachers) because their operating monies are in a T-bill fund a Wachovia, and although the money is 100% safe it's now frozen for the next three to six months. (That may now be moot with the Wells Fargo/Wachovia deal superseding the one with Citigroup and the FDIC.)

[fauxklore]

There's no reason to believe that the staffs of the various congresscritters (and the professional staff of the Finance committees) weren't working while the House recessed.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

In which case the media shouldn't have claimed that the delay was caused by Rosh Hashanah.

[fauxklore]

And, in fact, the handful of media outlets that actually have a clue about how Washington works didn't claim that.

Actual voting was, of course, delayed, but that is a very small part of what goes into making laws.

It is, by the way, typical for there to be several days between a draft bill being released (i.e. by the relevant committee) and the actual floor vote on it. Probably a week on average, though it can happen faster if there is a recess approaching.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

I saw it in both the Times and the Journal. (Of course, they may not have a clue about how Washington works. :-)

[fauxklore]

The WSJ used to be fairly reliable, but now that Rupert Murdoch owns them I have my doubts. I have other reasons to believe the NY Times is clueless about Washington.

In general, I think the Washington Post and the Christian Science Monitor are usually more clueful about basic civics.

[sethg]

These are the same news outlets whose announcers would get fired if they said "the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 20 points today for reasons which are almost indistinguishable from random noise". So what did you expect? Analysis? Journalism?

It's easier to just blame the Jews. :-/

[autotruezone.livejournal.com]

I would think there might be a fair likelihood that the percentage of Jews among congressional staffers might be higher than the percentage of Jews among members of Congress. Although I don't know if anyone keeps stats on such things.

[fauxklore]

I suspect the opposite.

It's easy to get information about the number of Jews in Congress. There are 13 Jewish senators and 30 Jewish representatives. Which is 13% of the Senate and just under 7% of the House. Info on religion is included in the profiles in the Congressional Handbook, by the way. One of the Senate Jews, Chuck Schumer, is on the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Jews on the House Committee on Financial Services are Barney Frank, Brad Sherman, Ron Klein, Paul Hodes and Gary Ackerman, (By the way, looking up this info was the first clue I had as to my representative's religion;)

I don't know of a source for such info for staffers, but I suspect their demographics more closely mirror the demographics of the U.S., in general. None of the professional staffers I know are Jewish, but that doesn't particularly mean anything since, with the exception of somebody I've met at alumni events, I only know staffers who work on particular types of issues.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Gee... Barney Frank is my Representative, and Gary Ackerman is my parents'.