On May 4, 2026, President Donald J. Trump signed a proclamation that, for the first time in the 250-year history of the United States, calls on Jewish Americans to observe a single…
A historic first: the President of the United States just asked Jewish Americans to keep Shabbos
On May 4, 2026, President Donald J. Trump signed a proclamation that, for the first time in the 250-year history of the United States, calls on Jewish Americans to observe a single, national Shabbos. The proclamation designates the period from sundown on Friday, May 15, 2026 through nightfall on Saturday, May 16, 2026 as a national Sabbath in honor of America's 250th birthday. It is, in plain terms, the first time a sitting American president has formally asked Jewish Americans to keep Shabbos. Most of the press is calling it Shabbos 250 — or, in its more common English spelling, Shabbat 250. If you are Jewish, this article is for you. It will tell you everything you need to know: what the proclamation actually says, why this Shabbos is the one President Trump chose, what Shabbos is for those who have not kept one in a long time (or ever), and exactly how to keep one full Shabbos for America's 250th birthday.
What is Shabbos 250, in one sentence?
Shabbos 250 (also written as Shabbat 250 and sometimes called the National Sabbath) is the name being given to the single Shabbos — Friday sundown, May 15, 2026 through nightfall on Saturday, May 16, 2026 — that President Trump's Jewish American Heritage Month proclamation has asked Jewish Americans to observe as a nationwide day of rest, gratitude, and reflection in honor of America's 250th anniversary. The "250" refers to the United States, not the Shabbos: it marks 250 years since 1776. For Jewish Americans who already keep Shabbos every week, it is the same Shabbos they would have kept anyway — now charged with extra national meaning. For Jewish Americans who do not yet keep Shabbos, it is an invitation, from the President of the United States, to step into a practice that has belonged to the Jewish people for over 3,000 years.
The dates: Friday, May 15 to Saturday, May 16, 2026
Shabbos 250 begins at sundown on Friday, May 15, 2026 — your local sunset, which varies by city — and ends about 25 hours later at nightfall on Saturday, May 16, 2026. The exact start and end times are different depending on where you live: someone in New York City lights candles at a different minute than someone in Houston, Los Angeles, or Miami. The simplest way to find your exact local times is to enter your ZIP code on the Shabbos 250 homepage, which will calculate candle lighting and Havdalah for your address down to the minute. You don't need an app. You don't need a subscription. The times are free, and they are accurate to the same standards used by Orthodox Jewish communities for the last hundred years. Find your local Shabbos 250 times now, then come back and finish reading.
What President Trump's Shabbos 250 proclamation actually says
The full proclamation is titled "Jewish American Heritage Month, 2026," and it does two things at once. First, it formally designates May 2026 as Jewish American Heritage Month — a designation every U.S. president has made annually since 2006. Second, and historically, it includes a section directed at Jewish Americans, asking them to observe a national Shabbos. The relevant words from the White House: in special honor of 250 years of American independence, and on the weekend of Rededicate 250 — described in the proclamation as a national jubilee of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving — Jewish Americans are encouraged to observe a national Sabbath from sundown on May 15 to nightfall on May 16. The proclamation describes the day as a recognition of "the sacred Jewish tradition of setting aside time for rest, reflection, and gratitude to the Almighty." It then goes on to celebrate Jewish Americans' contributions across 250 years and to pledge continued action against antisemitism on campuses and in public life.
Why this is historic — and what 'first' actually means here
American presidents have made many proclamations honoring Jewish American history. None of them has ever asked Jewish Americans to keep Shabbos. There are presidential proclamations for Easter, for Christmas, for the National Day of Prayer; there has been a Jewish American Heritage Month every May since 2006. But until May 4, 2026, no sitting U.S. president had ever called on Jewish Americans to actually observe Shabbos as a national act. That is what makes Shabbos 250 different. It is not a remembrance of Jewish history; it is a presidential request that Jewish Americans, on one specific weekend, do the thing the Torah has been asking the Jewish people to do for over 3,000 years — and do it together, at the same time, across the country.
George Washington's 1790 letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport
The proclamation begins by reaching almost as far back as the country itself — to August 1790, when President George Washington wrote a letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island. In that letter, Washington promised that the new United States would be a country which "gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance." He invoked the language of the Hebrew Bible, writing that the children of the stock of Abraham would dwell safely in America. Trump's Shabbos 250 proclamation quotes Washington directly, framing Shabbos 250 not as a new gesture but as a fulfillment, 236 years later, of Washington's original promise to the Jews of America. The connection is striking: the first U.S. president promised the Jewish people safety and respect on American soil; the 47th has now asked the Jewish people, on American soil, to gather one Shabbos together as a nation.
Haym Salomon: the Jewish financier who helped fund the American Revolution
The proclamation also names Haym Salomon, a Polish-born Jewish immigrant who became one of the most important financiers of the American Revolution. Salomon brokered loans, sold government securities, and is widely credited with helping keep the Continental Army funded during its most desperate months. He died in 1785, deeply in debt, having spent much of his fortune supporting American independence. In invoking Salomon, Trump's Shabbos 250 proclamation reminds the country that Jewish Americans have been part of the American story not just culturally, but in the very founding of the republic. The message is straightforward: the Jewish presence in America is not a recent arrival. It is woven into the country's beginning. Shabbos 250 honors that.
What 'Rededicate 250' is, and how Shabbos 250 fits inside it
The proclamation places Shabbos 250 inside a larger national observance called Rededicate 250 — a presidential initiative for the weekend of May 15–16, 2026 described as a national jubilee of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving leading up to the country's full 250th anniversary on July 4, 2026. The Jewish American piece of that weekend is Shabbos. Crucially, the proclamation does not ask the Jewish community to do anything new or anything different: Jewish Americans are simply asked to keep Shabbos the way Jews have always kept it. Nothing is added. Nothing is altered. The 25 hours that have been the heart of Jewish life since Sinai are now also, by presidential proclamation, the Jewish contribution to America's 250th.
Shabbos Achdus: why this exact Shabbos matters in Jewish tradition, too
There's a striking detail many people don't know yet. The Shabbos that President Trump chose — Parshas Bamidbar, the Torah portion read on May 16, 2026 — is the same Shabbos that the Lubavitcher Rebbe, more than 40 years ago, designated as Shabbos Achdus, "Unity Shabbos." It is observed every year as a Shabbos of Jewish unity, just before the holiday of Shavuos. So Shabbos 250 is not only a national moment of unity called for by an American president; it is, on the Jewish calendar, already a moment of unity called for by one of the most influential Jewish leaders of the 20th century. That overlap is not accidental in significance. It is a Shabbos that, by both Jewish and American tradition, is about coming together.
What is Shabbos? A 60-second overview for Jews who have not kept one in a long time
For Jewish Americans who didn't grow up keeping Shabbos, or who have not kept one in a long time, here is the short version. Shabbos — also spelled Shabbat — is the seventh day of the Jewish week, observed from sundown on Friday until the appearance of three medium-sized stars on Saturday night. For about 25 hours, observant Jews stop working, stop driving, stop using phones and screens, stop spending money, stop creating, and stop being available to the world. They light candles before sundown, sit down to a meal with family, walk to shul, eat a slow Saturday lunch, rest, learn Torah, and end the day with a short ceremony called Havdalah. The fourth of the Ten Commandments — "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy" — has been the source of this practice for over 3,000 years. There has never been a week, anywhere in the world, since then, when at least some Jews were not keeping it.
Shabbos 250 is for every Jew in America — observant or not
The proclamation is addressed to Jewish Americans, and the invitation inside it is broad. It does not matter whether you are frum, modern, traditional, Reform, secular, unaffiliated, or somewhere in between. It does not matter whether you have kept hundreds of Shabbosos or have never kept one. It does not matter whether your grandparents kept Shabbos and you have not, or whether you grew up in a home where Shabbos was just a Friday night dinner. Shabbos 250 is for every Jew in America. The point of the proclamation is national unity around a single Jewish day, and a national moment becomes one Jew at a time. If you are reading this and you are Jewish, the invitation is you.
The five things you actually need for Shabbos 250
You don't need to know every prayer. You don't need a kosher kitchen. You don't need to memorize anything. To keep Shabbos 250 well, you need five things. (1) Two Shabbos candles, lit before sundown on Friday. (2) Bread — challah is traditional, but any nice bread works for a first time — and grape juice or wine for Kiddush. (3) Food that is fully cooked before sundown, since Shabbos isn't a day for cooking, just eating. (4) Your phone in a drawer for 25 hours. (5) The blessings printed on paper, since you won't be using a screen. That's the minimum, and the minimum is plenty. The Shabbos 250 packet builder will print you a single-page checklist with all of this in one place — for free, for your exact location.
Friday afternoon: a calm, simple plan
Friday afternoon is where Shabbos is won or lost. The single biggest mistake first-timers make is trying to cook, clean, set the table, and figure out which lights to leave on all in the last 30 minutes. Aim instead to be fully done one full hour before candle lighting. Have your food cooked by midday. Set the table early. Walk through the house and decide which lights stay on for the next 25 hours. Tape over any switches you don't want flipped by accident. Take a shower. Put on something nice. By the time you light the candles, you should feel ready, not rushed. That alone will change your Shabbos 250.
Friday night: the meal that has not changed in three thousand years
The Friday night meal is the heart of Shabbos. It begins with two candles, lit by the woman of the house — or any adult — with a short blessing. Then a song, Shalom Aleichem, welcomes the Shabbos. The man of the house — or any adult — makes Kiddush over a cup of wine or grape juice, sanctifying the day. Everyone washes their hands, says a blessing over two loaves of challah, and sits down to eat. The food itself doesn't matter as much as the unhurried-ness of it. Most Friday night Shabbos meals last two or three hours. There is no clock, no phone, no agenda. Just a long meal with people you love and as much singing as you want to do. If you have never sat at a Shabbos table, sitting at one will be one of the best meals of your life.
Saturday: rest, study, walk, talk
Saturday on Shabbos is unlike any other day in modern Western life. There is no rushing. The morning starts late if you want it to. Many people walk to synagogue for the Shabbos morning prayers, which include the public Torah reading. The Saturday lunch is the second of three traditional Shabbos meals — challah, wine, food cooked the day before. The afternoon is for whatever you want it to be: a long walk, a nap, a book, a conversation with your spouse or your kids that has somehow not happened in months. The phones stay off. The schedule stays empty. By late afternoon, your nervous system will feel different than it did 24 hours earlier. That difference is the entire point.
Havdalah: how Shabbos 250 ends
Saturday night, after about three medium-sized stars become visible in the sky, Shabbos 250 ends with a 90-second ceremony called Havdalah. Havdalah uses three things: a cup of wine or grape juice (filled until it overflows slightly into the saucer, a sign of abundance), a small box of fragrant spices (cloves and cinnamon work fine), and a Havdalah candle — a tall, multi-wicked braided candle that produces a torch-like flame. You hold the cup and recite Havdalah. You smell the spices. You hold your hand toward the flame and look at the light reflected on your fingernails. You drink the wine. You extinguish the flame in the wine. The 25 hours are over. Most people, the first time they do Havdalah, do not want it to end.
What if you can't keep all 25 hours? Start with one moment.
A lot of Jewish Americans read something like this and think: "I can't turn off my phone for 25 hours." Or: "I work Saturdays." Or: "My family won't be into it." Shabbos 250 is not all-or-nothing. If you can light two candles before sundown on Friday, May 15, 2026 and say a few words of gratitude, you have done something Jews have done for three thousand years. If you can sit down to a Friday night dinner with your family, with the phones off for two hours, you have honored the proclamation. If you can light the candles, eat the meal, and then return to your normal life on Saturday morning, you have done something many American Jews have never done. Start with one moment of Shabbos. One real moment is more than zero, and it is the beginning of everything.
Common questions about Shabbos 250
Who is Shabbos 250 for? Jewish Americans — observant or not, religious or not, affiliated or not. Do I have to be Orthodox? No. Do I have to belong to a synagogue? No. Will I get this wrong? Almost certainly, in some small way, the first time — that is how it goes the first time. Will it still be a real Shabbos? Yes. Is Shabbos 250 the same as Shabbat 250? Yes — both spellings refer to the same Shabbos, May 15–16, 2026. Why is it called 250? Because it marks 250 years of American independence. Where can I find local Shabbos times? On the Shabbos 250 homepage, free, by ZIP code. Should I invite other Jews to join me? Please do — the whole idea of Shabbos 250 is that it is a national Jewish moment, and a national moment becomes one Jewish family at a time.
Build your free Shabbos 250 packet today
Shabbos 250 is days away. The single most useful thing a Jewish American can do right now, before the moment is gone, is build a printable Shabbos 250 packet for your exact location. The packet is free. It includes your local candle lighting time and Havdalah time, the brachos printed in clear large type, a simple step-by-step Friday afternoon and Saturday timeline, a Friday night dinner script, and a checklist of what to buy this week. You print it once and follow it offline on Shabbos itself, which is the point — you won't be using a screen. If you do nothing else after reading this, do this. Build your packet now, find your local Shabbos 250 times, and subscribe to the Friday morning newsletter so you have everything you need before sundown on May 15. This is a Shabbos the Jewish people in America have never had before. Be part of it.
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