The protest against reinstating standard time has stirred a heated debate, and a prominent representative of the religious public in the government has added his voice, saying that daylight saving time should continue.
"The reinstating to Standard Time does not help the religious or conservative public," Habayit Hayehudi chairman and Science and Technology Minister Prof. Daniel Hershkowitz said Sunday. "I see no reason not to leave Daylight Saving Time and thereby create savings in the economy."
"It's not clear why daylight saving has become a religious-secular issue ,"he said. "Perhaps politicians of both sides have taken up positions and are finding it hard to retreat, but I don't see any Jewish aspect to this issue. A decisive majority of the nation – for whom the Yom Kippur fast is important – will fast in any case, and the length of the fast will not change."
MK Dalia Itzik, chairperson of the Kadima faction, asked Chief Rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger to find a "creative and unifying solution" to the public controversy around daylight saving.
"I call on you, as spiritual religious leaders, not to stand behind the public debate," she wrote. "Today there is a great need to stop the ticking clock of division, and you have the power to do this. Please, listen to the voices of Israeli society and find a creative solution, which will give preference to what unifies over what divides, a solution… that will lead to greater unity in the nation as we approach the holidays."