Jewish Invention Myths: The Weekend
Jews have a habit of claiming they invented everything and anything.
One such that is perhaps lesser known than most is the idea that jews created the ‘Weekend’. This – as shown by Kathryn Bernheimer at ‘Boulder Jewish News’ – is done by claiming the ‘Weekend’ originated from the jewish observance of Shabbos (i.e., the jewish Sabbath) on late Friday to late Saturday of every week. (1)
The problem with this is that it simply isn’t true.
In the first instance the ‘weekend’ itself is a relatively modern innovation being a nineteenth century British creation not an ancient or a biblical jewish one. (2)
This is easily demonstrated by pointing out that prior to this secular non-jewish piece of innovation it was normal to have a six-day working week followed by a rest day (the Sabbath) and it was Henry Ford – you know the American industrialist and ardent anti-Semite – who is largely responsible for this shift to a five-day working week from a six-day working week in 1926. (3) Prior to this jews often also worked on Sunday as Guenzi has pointed out in relation to the Amsterdam Stock Exchange in the seventeenth century. (4)
In the second instance the concept of the ‘Sabbath day’ itself actually dates from Babylonia and/or Assyria and was imported into Judaism from there either before, during or after the Babylonian captivity so isn’t a jewish invention at all. (5)
In the third instance the idea that the ‘Sabbath day’ where there is a non-working/special day between working weeks is a uniquely jewish invention is utter nonsense with the Romans - for example - having an eight day week with the eighth day being called the Nundinae, which was a market day and far more similar to the modern weekend than Judaism’s Shabbos, because it wasn’t ‘a day of rest’ but rather a day to go to the market and a day of leisure as well as conduct religious rites rather than just go to religious services and refrain from travelling any significant distance and any and all work (the jewish version of the ‘Sabbath day’).
So no the jews didn’t invent the weekend or even the concept of the Sabbath itself.
References
(1) https://boulderjewishnews.org/2009/an-informal-list-of-jewish-inventions-innovations-and-radical-ideas/
(2) https://www.etymonline.com/word/weekend
(3) https://web.archive.org/web/20161128134109/http://www.hrhero.com/hl/articles/2010/02/04/shorter-workweek-in-a-tough-economy/
(4) Alberto Guenzi, 2006, 'European Expansion in the Seventeenth Century', pp. 73-74 in Antonio Di Vittorio (Ed.), 2006, 'An Economic History of Europe: From Expansion to Development', 1st Edition, Routledge: New York
(5) T. G. Pinches, 1920, ‘Sabbath (Babylonian)’, pp. 889-891 in James Hastings (Ed.), 2003, (1926), ‘Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics’, Vol. 10, 1st Edition, Kessinger: Whitefish also Leland Copeland, 1939, ‘Sources of the Seven-Day Week’, Popular Astronomy, Vol. 47, No. 4, p. 176