Channels

Daylight Savings Time ends Saturday night

Israel's Daylight Savings Time ends October 27, following Knesset-approved extension. Next DST to commence in March 2014

Daylight Savings Time (DST) is to end Saturday night — at 2 am, Israel will move the clocks to 1 am. In July, The Knesset approved the extension of DST so that the next installment will commence in March 28, 2014.

 

Following several communication irregularities, cellular service providers recommend that Israelis return smartphones time zones (after having switched to Athens time zone when the original date to end DST was postponed) to Jerusalem/Israel time on Saturday night. Other cellular service providers recommended that users not rely on smartphones' clocks altogether to prevent any problems.

 

Related stories:

 

According to evaluations of an Interior Ministry-appointed committee, extending the DST was expected to save the market NIS 300 million. Following the extension, the average duration of DST in Israel would be 211 days, as in European countries. According to the committee's recommendations, DST would be activated on the Friday before the first Sunday of March at 2 am and until the last Sunday of October, thereby extending it by three weeks.

 

The lengthy political debate regarding DST's duration ended at the previous Knesset session, but the social debate has yet to cease. "They could have found a better solution that would fit the needs of everyone," said Oren Avraham, for whom DST means waking up in complete darkness to make it to morning prayer.

 

A great part of the social debate revolved around the issue of morning prayer, as observant Jews wanted DST as short as possible, "but it seems that being considerate of those who are religious has become the red rag to many secular people in this country."

 

His wife Kinneret, however, disagrees: "This extra DST month was great. That extra hour of sunlight allowed me to play with the kids outside until fairly late when I got home at the end of my working day. Sunshine is a blessed thing; we need as much of it when we're awake.

 

"Plus," Kinneret noted, "prayer time can be worked out – it's not that big a deal if Oren wakes up and it's still a little dark."

 

 

  • Receive Ynetnews updates directly to your desktop

 

 

 


פרסום ראשון: 10.26.13, 18:03
 new comment
Warning:
This will delete your current comment