# Laws against working on the Sabbath? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 31, 2026, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laws-against-working-on-the-sabbath/1028918 "2026-03-31T18:06:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2026, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laws-against-working-on-the-sabbath/1028918/101 "2026-05-22T00:58:35Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Illinois is among the U.S. states which has a law prohibiting auto dealers from operating/opening on Sundays. This apparently had its genesis in blue laws, but it’s a relatively recent law in Illinois (only created in 1984), and it’s mostly because the auto dealers lobbied for it as a way to give employees a day off, while ensuring that their competitors would not be able to steal business by opening on the same day. That’s pretty reasonable. Used to be barber shops (at least in CA) were all closed Monday for a similar reason, ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2026, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laws-against-working-on-the-sabbath/1028918/102 "2026-05-22T20:08:32Z")
The reason the Jewish General Hospital exists is that 100 years ago, no hospital would allow a Jewish doctor on their staff. I think a secondary reason was so patients could get kosher meals. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2026, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laws-against-working-on-the-sabbath/1028918/103 "2026-05-23T00:59:04Z")
It’s a little more complicated than that. [1930-06-12\_1685.pdf](http://pdfs.jta.org/1930/1930-06-12_1685.pdf) [The-Jewish-Problem-in-US-Med-Edu-1.pdf](https://jhssc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/The-Jewish-Problem-in-US-Med-Edu-1.pdf) The WASP establishment wanted to retain proportional representation of WASP Doctors at WASP hospitals, and there were arguments about if quotas or silent discrimination was the best way to go about that, but suggesting that “no hospital would allow a Jewish Doctor on staff” is just wrong. Some hospitals would not hire RC or Prod or Jewish doctors, and many hospitals would not hire Black doctors or nurses, and (more importantly) specialist training positions at teaching hospitals went preferentially to “PLU”, Jewish doctors were being trained and working in hospitals: the questions leading to the creation of JGH were about numbers and specialist training. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2026, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laws-against-working-on-the-sabbath/1028918/104 "2026-05-23T01:24:07Z")
Did they just ask people applying to medical schools or hospitals if they were Jewish (or Black, or whatever) in order to implement their blatant, illegal anti-Semitism, or was there a subtler method? ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2026, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laws-against-working-on-the-sabbath/1028918/105 "2026-05-23T01:56:42Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > t their blatant, illegal anti-Semitism, or was there a subtler method? Both, and which should be used was the subject of argument, particularly in the Jewish community (I’m guessing that the WASP community didn’t care either way, but maybe I’ve just missed that part of the discussion). Not, of course “illegal”, where did you get that? And keep in mind that an important part of the “I wouldn’t join any club that would have me” joke was that he didn’t want to live as part of a ghetto: not just that he didn’t want to join a non-selective WASP club, he particularly didn’t want to join a Jewish club that was selective. I don’t know what it’s like now in Melbourne, but when I was young, if you wanted to study cardiology, you had to be Jewish. Because all the cardiologists were Jewish, and offered training positions to Jewish students. How did they manage that? I suppose, partly by the same way everybody else managed to select people who weren’t first or second generation migrants. One of the reasons the JGH hospital exists is because Jewish doctors wished to blatantly discriminate against non-Jewish doctors. Like RC nursing establishments blatantly discriminated against Prod doctors. Like everybody blatantly discriminated against Black doctors and nurses. The Jewish doctors and community weren’t inhuman in some kind of special magical anti-tribalism. And when we are talking about Jewish doctors in the 1920’s, we aren’t talking about piece-workers in the garment district: these are upper class members of the establishment, who had money and influence. They _started their own hospital_. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2026, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laws-against-working-on-the-sabbath/1028918/106 "2026-05-23T12:00:05Z")
We’re straying a little off-topic here, but keeping the subject to Jewish hospitals, here is the story of an incident in Montreal in which a Jewish doctor was accusing of taking away a Catholic doctor’s job. [Days of Shame - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_Shame) ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2026, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laws-against-working-on-the-sabbath/1028918/107 "2026-05-23T17:57:46Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > > [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > > > Not exactly what you’re looking for, but some areas still have “blue laws” prohibiting some commercial activities on Sunday. Bergen County, NJ is one rather well known one - a huge mall there is basically shuttered on Sunday. > > > > There are exceptions. Grocery stores. News stands / places that sell newspapers and magazines. My husband likes to quip that you can’t buy a Bible on Sunday but you CAN buy Playboy. > > I never lived in Bergen County. Blue laws in most of the state went away a long time ago. I do remember as a child that most stores were closed. One of the exceptions were hardware stores, but they were limited as to what they could sell. I remember going with my father to the late lamented Builders Emporium. There were a large areas of the store and also individual pallets that were roped off. They contained the items that they weren’t allowed to sell. I was just a child, but I still thought it was very bizarre. " Poppy? What’s that enormous pallet of Playboy magazines? And why is it half-empty? " ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2026, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laws-against-working-on-the-sabbath/1028918/108 "2026-05-24T01:53:54Z")
Thanks for the correction. The explanation I gave was always what I had been told. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2026, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laws-against-working-on-the-sabbath/1028918/109 "2026-05-24T13:29:51Z")
I live in a city with a large Muslim presence. Friday lunchtime is Mosque time, and though there is no law about it, many of my collegues would take lunch break to answer the call to prayer. I’m not religious, but I liked the fact that HR was fine if my colleagues were a little late coming back from the Mosque. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2026, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laws-against-working-on-the-sabbath/1028918/110 "2026-05-24T14:05:26Z")
HR better be fine with it or they’d be rightfully sued. A similar example in my experience is longer lunches on Ash Wednesday. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2026, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laws-against-working-on-the-sabbath/1028918/111 "2026-05-24T15:29:50Z")
To be fair, the non-muslims would occasionally take a “long lunch” on a Friday too. Just with less religion and more beer. And burgers. ---
**Author:** ![ricepad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b38774/32.png) [@ricepad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricepad)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2026, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laws-against-working-on-the-sabbath/1028918/112 "2026-05-24T17:00:32Z")
There’s a relatively new mosque in my neighborhood. When they opened their doors (probably ca 2019), they had an open house, and welcomed the community to take a look around. We are not Muslim, nor are we Christian. We are pretty avowed agnostics tending toward atheism, but we went to show our support for their right to be in our community. There had been a lot of pushback at every level of their development/permitting, and we wanted them to know they were as welcome as the mega(Christian) church just down the road. One of their leaders - not sure what his title, or even if he had one (he may have been a member of their administrative board) said their Friday prayers typically only take about an hour, so if any employers had members of his congregation disappear at lunchtime for prayer and never came back for the rest of the day, they had his permission to have a supervisor-employee chat! ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2026, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laws-against-working-on-the-sabbath/1028918/113 "2026-05-24T22:21:15Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > HR better be fine with it or they’d be rightfully sued. A similar example in my experience is longer lunches on Ash Wednesday. Not in Quebec. My wife was working for the Ministry of Education and the union contract called for three discretionary days of leave each year. She tried to use one to take off for Yom Kippur. Her immediate superior approved, but some functionary in the ministry disallowed it say that these discretionary were at the discretion of the employer. Her superior tried to argue but to no avail and she finally used a vacation day. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2026, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laws-against-working-on-the-sabbath/1028918/114 "2026-05-24T23:24:44Z")
> [@scudsucker](#): > > To be fair, the non-muslims would occasionally take a “long lunch” on a Friday too. Just with less religion and more beer. And burgers. One of my friends got a big Christmas bonus for his summer-break job. Equivalent pay for working Friday afternoons, at a workplace where the standard working conditions were that none of the working stiffs actually got back to work until sign-off on a Friday afternoon. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laws-against-working-on-the-sabbath/1028918.md?page=5)