{"id":89867,"date":"2025-10-01T18:55:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T23:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=89867"},"modified":"2025-10-03T07:27:52","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T12:27:52","slug":"federal-government-shutdown-drags-into-yom-kippur-pausing-senate-negotiations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/federal-government-shutdown-drags-into-yom-kippur-pausing-senate-negotiations\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal government shutdown drags into Yom Kippur, pausing Senate negotiations"},"content":{"rendered":"

By GRACE GILSON<\/p>\n

(JTA) \u2014 The U.S. federal government will last at least into Friday after the Senate paused budget talks to accommodate Yom Kippur.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The government shut down at midnight Wednesday night amid a standoff between Democratic and Republican senators over competing spending bills. Talks to end the shutdown, the first since the record-breaking 35-day freeze in 2018, immediately paused for two days for the Jewish holiday, which begins Wednesday evening and ends Thursday evening.<\/p>\n

The break has made senators \u2014 not to mention the 750,000 federal employees whose paychecks are in limbo \u2014 acutely aware of the Jewish calendar. Yom Kippur is Judaism\u2019s holiest day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to be working Thursday because it\u2019s a Jewish holiday, but we\u2019re planning on, right now, having votes on Friday and maybe Saturday, probably Saturday, maybe Sunday,\u201d Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, told NBC News. \u201cA lot of that is determined by how many people we have here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea is to not vote over Yom Kippur and then come back in,\u201d said Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming. \u201cWe\u2019ll continue to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shutdown hinges on Democrats\u2019 demands to include health care funding in the spending bill, which President Donald Trump and Republican senators have said they are open to negotiating only at a later date.<\/p>\n

\u201cIT\u2019S MIDNIGHT. That means the Republican shutdown has just begun because they wouldn\u2019t protect Americans\u2019 health care,\u201d wrote Jewish New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer in a post on X. \u2018We\u2019re going to keep fighting for the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Federal institutions do not immediately close when the government shuts down. But they can close if a shutdown extends for a significant period. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., announced on Wednesday that it would remain open through at least Sunday.<\/p>\n

For some watching the Senate\u2019s budget jousting, the meaning of Yom Kippur, Judaism\u2019s day of atonement, is resonant in the current moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cYom Kippur reminds us that renewal begins with teshuvah \u2014 owning our failures and choosing a better path,\u201d wrote one user on X. \u201cA government shutdown on this sacred day might just be a call for our leaders to learn the same lesson.\u201d<\/p>\n

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