Israel – A full month ahead of the United States and Europe, Israel has moved back the clocks, ending daylight savings time earlier than the rest of the world. On Sunday at 2:00 am, the clocks were moved back one hour.
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Every year, the question is raised as to why Israel moves the clocks back earlier than the Western states. The debate: religious people prefer to end the Yom Kippur fast at an earlier hour in the day, while secular people prefer to have an extra hour of sunlight, and perhaps even save on electricity.
Former Interior Minister Avraham Poraz said to Ynet that moving the clocks back early is a capitulation to the religious and the haredim, who ask that standard time be brought in before the Yom Kippur fast.
“It is an unnecessary and unjustifiable capitulation. It is abuse of the public. Their claim is that it is difficult to fast during daylight savings time. If they would set the start of prayers for one hour later, it would have precisely the same result,” said Poraz. He said that he tried to change the law during his term as interior minister, but failed.
Knesset Member Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz) is also outraged that daylight savings time is ended as temperatures outside are hover around 30 C degrees (86 F degrees).
“Daylight savings during most days of the year is the proper thing,” he said. “It is proper for the environment, for the Israeli economy, for the battle against road accidents, and for our healthy lifestyles. There is no logic in starting standard time in September – many long weeks before standard time is started in the rest of the countries.”
MK Horowitz said that the opposition of ultra-Orthodox officials to daylight savings is unfounded and entirely arbitrary, and harms the public, including the haredim themselves. He added that he believes daylight savings should be in place in Israel throughout the year and that clocks must be moved forward an additional hour in the summer months.
“As the entire world takes maximum advantage of the sunlight, here, in our sun-filled country, the free majority capitulates to an extremist minority. As such, tomorrow at 6:00 pm, darkness will fall on all of us,” claimed Horowitz.
On the other hand, religious and haredi figures claim that they must be taken into consideration. MK Zevulun Orlev (Habayit Hayehudi) said, “For many long years there have been wars and arm-bending between the religious and secular.
“A few years ago, the religious and the seculars reached a consensus in the Knesset regarding the set dates of standard time and daylight savings time. We thought it reasonable that the Hebrew calendar be taken into account in Israel, including on Passover and Yom Kippur. This is because there is a fast, and there is Seder night. As you know, the Jewish day does not start at midnight as it does in the Christian world, but on the evening prior,” explained Orlev.
MK Orlev attacked his colleague from Meretz. “Nitzan Horowitz is apparently completely disconnected from anything Jewish. He apparently is unprepared to take into consideration any Jewish element. True that the State of Israel is different in the sense that it took into consideration the Jewish holidays in deciding when to enter standard time. I am fine with the fact that we go to standard time Saturday because it reflects the very broad consensus in the Knesset.”
MK David Azoulay (Shas) initiated the said law and passed it in the Knesset in 2005. According to the law, daylight savings time will start on the last Friday of March at 2:00 am and will end at midnight on the first Saturday of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.
“The law works well to the benefit of everyone. I didn’t here about anyone who wasn’t satisfied,” said Azoulay to Ynet. “The trend is to make it easier for those who fast on Yom Kippur. The people of Israel is rewarded and there are no arguments.
“The law is essentially the result of a compromise between the religious and the non-religious public. Daylight savings starts on the first of April when it is still Spring, and ends on the Saturday night between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, such that it ends on a Hebrew month and starts on a Gregorian month. It’s a compromise.”
According to MK Azoulay, there is no proof that the said method has resulted in economic damages. “I haven’t seen any scientific study on the issue. Sums are thrown about in the air, but, with all due respect, no one has proved (them). Perhaps (the current method) even creates big savings.”
In response to the claim that standard time increases road accidents, Azoulay responded: “Here, too, nothing has been researched. These statements should not be relied upon.”
In contradiction to this article, it’s been reported many times over that the religous seculars requested ending fast an hour earlier whereas the charedim prefer an extra hour of tefilah to Hashem which makes sense. (suddenly charedim get first choice?!)
The charidem save much more to the enviroment by not driving one day of the week.
Surrender? How about a compromise. The chilonim expect us to accomodate them, but make no effort to accomodate us.
For a Jewish country, there is plenty of anti-Jewish feelings.
Not to side with the anti-frum, but the whole thing is silly. It’s purely psychological. When you change the clock 1 day before yom kippur your body is still on the old time, so it makes no difference. My kids woke up 5:30 this morning the new time, and they’ll probably do the same tomorrow. So my day is just as long.
I don’t understand. Your body is fasting the same length of time, regardless of whether it is Daylight Savings Time or Standard Time.
It’s all in the mind…which the Mateh Efrayim very eloquently discusses in 611:1: “…due to our great sins we see…that people are constantly anticipating when the Holy Day will end, and are constantly looking at their watches to see how many minutes are left until the time to eat…a person such as this does not fulfill this positive commandment with joy, and does not receive one part in a billion of the reward of one who rejoices in the afflictions of Yom haKippurim.”
All of the seculars in Eretz Yisrael are now doing melacha and eating on Yom Kippur – chiyuvei kareis – for one hour less (people are more makpid on the night before and maybe the morning of Yom Kippur, but not as much on the rest of the day) – isn’t that worth it?
These chardeim have big shoulders for taking responsibility for all the people missing zman krias shema and zman tefillah bec of this time change. 8:30 zmani krias shema during bein hazmanim? Not the greatest of ideas.
More than 70% of the Jewish population in Israel is observing Yom Kippur.
Why do the 30% who don’t observe it blame the Chareidim?
I say get rid of this whole daylight savings shtusim. What kind of a silly game is it anyway? What are we, all pretending its 6 o’clock when it’s really 5? What does it save anyway? Electricity? Doesn’t longer days mean more air conditioning? I don’t get it.
Daylight savings time is a farce that should be totally abolished
Allow me to paraphrase Rush from the other day:
Why is it ‘compromise’ when MY side caves to them & they don’t have to compromise to my side.
The whole time change there seems foolish doing it when they do especially considering the taanis STARTS an hour earlier & you have to get up to daven an hour earlier in the morning too!
As far as this helping the environment, that’s such BULL but I have no time to deal with this on Erev Yom Kippur.
Huh? the stars come out at the same time anyway.
Here is the solution: Frum jews should set their clocks and watches a half-hour ahead, secular jews a half-hour behind. The world will continue, Frum jews will fast just as long as before, secular jews can stop complaining, and the only confusion will be how to set TiVos for taping.
Why don’t the Cheraidim just move their clocks up for 1 or 2 days then put it back to the original time? What is a clock needed for anyway? It’s just a mind set.
Thousands of jews all over the world observe Yom Kippur during daylight savings time and seem to do just fine. I dont see the point in creating yet another point of contention between the Chareidim and Chilonim for something as meaningless as this. Dont we have enough to worry about? I dont thing it makes one bit of difference to an Iranian missile if its daylight savings time or not.
the world should end standard time and have daylight all year and perhaps add an additional hours during the winter
don’t c big deal here in bp & the bush the fast ends after 730pm. not going to say its easy but by then I am not really hungery. however when I was in isreal for yom kippur it was the best yom kippur I ever had.
I also don’t understand the problem. The fast is the same length whether daylight savings time or not. If you don’t like daylight savings time, start shacharit an hour later and you will get the same effect as ending daylight savings time early!
This seems like a minor issue to have a machlokes over. For us Yidden in America it is sometimes hard to understand why there is so much controversy over issues like this in Israel. I lived in Israel for a number of years and my sense is that sometimes it is just a fight over who will control and nothing more to it than that. In my opinion, Chareidim can have more influence through gentle speech, derech eretz, and gemillus chasodim than by fighting over issues like daylight savings time. OK they won, but in the end they have made other Jews more upset with them, and for what?
It is often claimed that daylight savings time saves money and electricity (and thus the environment). However, I have never seen any study done that verifies these contentions. In fact a recent Scientific American article casts doubt on the savings and even suggests that daylight savings time may increase power consumption. Forget the whole religious vs. anti-religious argument. Let’s figure out if the whole daylight savings thing is worth the money it costs. Only then should we debate the merits and liabilities of starting and ending on particular dates.
The difference makes fasting from the morning till eve. the night before after two meals one isn’t hungry, however in the morning one is and an hour less on that day could make a big difference especially when shekia falls shorter in israel than europe and the western world, so they end up fasting abit shorter.
Daylight savings time was a huge controversy in Israel in the early eighties, and the Hareidim opposed it. The Hareidi politicians of the time essentially demanded that the clocks be set back prior to Yom Kippur, and this was accepted as a compromise by the majority.
This is the way that it happened, as anyone who lived thorough those times in this country can tell you.
If I would have finished eating by 5:00 instead of 6:00, I would not have been much hungrier the next day, but, I would have been able to break my fast an hour earlier. However, It would have been somewhat more stressful to be ready to bentch licht by 5:27 instead of 6:27, and an hour more of fasting doesn’t make much difference once you’re fasting anyhow. Tisha B’Av ends about an hour later than Yom Kippur.