US Customs and Border Safety Commander Gregory Bovino (middle) on Jan. 15. Photograph by Octavio Jones/AFP/Alernate Crop
By Benyamin Cohen
February 1, 2026
Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol official who led immigration raids in Minneapolis, reportedly mocked the Jewish religion of Minnesota’s U.S. lawyer throughout a telephone name with different prosecutors in mid-January. According to The New York Times, Bovino complained that Daniel Rosen, an Orthodox Jew, was exhausting to succeed in over the weekend as a result of he observes Shabbat and sarcastically identified that Orthodox Jewish criminals don’t take the weekends off.
The decision passed off at a second of utmost rigidity in Minneapolis, as federal brokers beneath Bovino’s command carried out an aggressive immigration crackdown that had already turned lethal. It got here between the deadly shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, each killed throughout enforcement operations, and amid fierce backlash from native officers and residents.
Bovino made the remarks in a derisive, mocking tone, the Instances reported, casting Shabbat observance as some extent of ridicule. Bovino had already drawn nationwide consideration for ceaselessly sporting an olive double-breasted greatcoat with World Struggle II-era styling, main some critics to name him “Gestapo Greg” and accusing him of “Nazi cosplay.” Bovino, who pushed back on those comparisons, has since been reassigned.
Rosen, a Trump nominee, was confirmed as Minnesota’s U.S. lawyer in October 2025 after a profession in non-public apply and Jewish communal management. He has mentioned that rising antisemitism helped motivate his decision to take the job, and that prosecuting hate crimes could be a precedence for his workplace.
For a lot of Orthodox Jewish legal professionals, Bovino’s alleged remarks weren’t shocking. They echoed a well-known problem: explaining that Shabbat — a full day offline — will not be an absence of dedication, however a spiritual boundary that can’t be bent with out being damaged.
In a occupation that prizes fixed availability, that boundary can carry penalties. Some legal professionals say it exhibits up in refined methods: raised eyebrows, jokes about being unreachable, skepticism once they ask for day off. Others say it has formed a lot larger selections, together with how visibly Jewish they permit themselves to be at work.
David Schoen, an Orthodox legal protection lawyer who served as lead counsel for President Donald Trump throughout his second impeachment trial, mentioned he has lengthy been conscious of how non secular observance is perceived within the courtroom.
“I’ve made a acutely aware determination to not put on my yarmulke in entrance of a jury,” Schoen mentioned, explaining that jurors typically “draw stereotypes from what they see.”
These issues had been strengthened by expertise. Schoen mentioned he has seen a “particular distinction in angle” from some judges relying on whether or not he wore a yarmulke. In a single case, he recalled, a Jewish choose pulled him apart throughout a jury trial and instructed him she thought he had made the best alternative — a remark Schoen mentioned he discovered disappointing.
For Sara Shulevitz, a legal protection lawyer and former prosecutor, the Bovino episode introduced again reminiscences from early in her profession.
Orthodox and the daughter of a Hasidic rabbi — now married to 1 — Shulevitz mentioned her unavailability on Jewish holidays was typically handled as knowledgeable flaw relatively than a spiritual obligation. “It held me again from getting promotions,” she mentioned.
In court docket, the scrutiny might be blunt. “I used to be mocked by a Jewish choose for celebrating ‘antiquated’ Jewish holidays,” she mentioned, recalling requests for continuances for Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah. In one other case, she mentioned, a choose questioned her request for day off for Shavuot and urged she had already “taken off for Passover.”
When one other choose assumed Passover at all times started on the identical day in April, “I needed to clarify the Jewish lunar calendar in the midst of court docket whereas everybody was laughing,” she mentioned.
Not each encounter, Shulevitz added, was rooted in hostility. Generally judges merely didn’t perceive Orthodox apply. When she defined she couldn’t seem on a Jewish vacation, judges would recommend she be part of the listening to by Zoom — forcing her to elucidate that Orthodox Jews don’t use electrical gadgets on Shabbat or festivals.
The misunderstanding typically slid into a well-known assumption. “They assume you’re lazy,” she mentioned. “It’s not laziness. Any Jewish girl is aware of how a lot work goes into making ready for Passover.”
Rabbi Michael Broyde, a regulation professor at Emory College who research non secular lodging, mentioned that Bovino’s alleged “derogatory remarks” are “unhappy and displays, I fear, the antisemitic occasions we appear to be residing in.”
He added that the criticism of Rosen mirrored a fundamental misunderstanding of how regulation workplaces function, calling it “extraordinarily uncommon” for a lawyer’s non secular practices to intervene with their obligations, particularly when senior attorneys delegate work and courts routinely grant continuances.
“Nobody works 24/7,” Broyde mentioned.
The episode echoed an identical Shabbat-related incident throughout Trump’s first time period. In his 2022 memoir, former Trump commerce adviser Peter Navarro described how a gaggle sought to undermine Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s function within the 2020 marketing campaign by scheduling a key White Home assembly with Trump on a Saturday, figuring out Kushner — who’s Shabbat observant — wouldn’t attend. Navarro titled the chapter recounting the episode, “Shabbat Shalom and Sayonara.”
The strain between Jewish observance and public life will not be new. Sen. Joe Lieberman, the primary observant Jew to run on a major-party presidential ticket, famously walked to the Capitol for a Saturday vote and ate fish instead of meat at receptions. His longtime Senate colleague Chris Dodd joked that he turned Lieberman’s “Shabbos goy.”
Nonetheless, Schoen mentioned, visibility can lower each methods. Throughout Trump’s impeachment trial, whereas talking on the Senate flooring, he reached for a bottle of water and instinctively paused. With one hand holding the bottle, he used the opposite to cowl his head — a makeshift yarmulke — earlier than consuming.
The second was temporary, but it surely didn’t go unnoticed. Within the days that adopted, Schoen mentioned he heard from younger Jewish males and businesspeople who instructed him that seeing the gesture made them really feel extra snug sporting their very own yarmulkes at work.
The eye, he mentioned, was sudden. However for some within the Orthodox group, it turned a supply of satisfaction.
“I felt honored,” Schoen mentioned.
My guess in all seriousness is that he usually wears a yarmulke and this was reflex. Schoen is fashionable Orthodox so that might make sense. However I defer to @jacobkornbluh https://t.co/MkKx6W03v2
— Jake Tapper 🦅 (@jaketapper) February 9, 2021
Jacob Kornbluh contributed extra reporting.
