Israel to Get a Longer Summer With Extended Daylight-Saving Time

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eli-yishaiInterior Minister Eli Yishai announced today his decision to extend daylight-saving time in Israel, accepting the recommendation of an advisory committee he appointed.

According to the new plan, DST will be extended to 193 days, from the end of March to the beginning of October, instead of ending on the Sunday before Yom Kippur.

Proponents of DST extension say longer summers will increase market productivity and save tens of millions of shekels due to lower energy consumption in industries and in homes.

The main point of disagreement was Yishai’s reluctance to extend the fasting hours on Yom Kippur. According to the new plan, Yom Kippur will take place during DST about fifty percent of time. Yishai consulted with religious authorities before adopting his position.

The matter will now go to the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, which will also hear private members’ bills on the issue. MKs Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz ) and Dalia Itzik (Kadima ) have submitted draft laws that would further extend daylight time, in the case of Horowitz’s bill until the end of October.

Yishai appointed the advisory committee shortly before the Ministerial Committee for Legislation was due to consider Horowitz’s bill. Some politicians at the time accused Yishai of creating the panel in order to simply to head off the prospect of the Yom Kippur fast falling every year when daylight time was still in effect. The committee of experts was instructed to look at options that recognized the “special status” of Yom Kippur.

Several ministers, including Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, recently expressed support for a substantial extension of daylight time, but it is not clear if they would be satisfied with Yishai’s compromise decision.

Even if there is sufficient support for the decision, it is not certain the Knesset will manage to complete the legislative process before the expiration of daylight saving time this year on October 2.

{Haaretz/Matzav.com Newscenter}


9 COMMENTS

  1. I’ve never understood how 25 hours can be longer when it starts and ends later. Isn’t the Yom Kippur fast the same length no matter DST?

  2. No avreich, that line was once argued in the knesset. to which an opponent replied “if you can say that you have never fasted yom kippur”
    The hard part of the fast is the day right? Fasting at night is easy, barely noticable.
    Thus the fast is harder when tzeis is say at 8:00 even though that means it began at 7:00 comared to a year when the tzeis is “an hour earlier” at 7:00 even obviously the overall times is the same.

  3. Except that minyanim started earlier this past fall because of the “early” end. The davening amount is the same. So, while night might not be noticeable, when your morning starts earlier, it is, sof kol sof, the same length experience. I personally prefer the day when the clock reads a later end. Shacharis can begin a bit later — we are better-rested — and there is more apt to be a bit of a break in the afternoon.
    Obviously I’ve never “fasted yom kippur” … I daven yom kippur and the day passes much easier than many other fast days.
    I still don’t think the DST discussion as relevant to YK is very reasonable. If a population wants to do DST it should be a money-savings discussion along the lines of cost-to-run things during daylight hours vs. dark hours, as it seems to have finally become in Israel.

  4. Yankel.

    If tzeis is 8:00, than the zman krias shema in the morning is an hour later and shachris can begin later, so in effect the length of the fast from the time you wake up is the same either way…

  5. moish, it can but it wont. It doesnt pas to start davening on yom kipur at a later time. We both no that simply wont happen.
    avreich, i didnt mean that you never fasted chv. I was just quoting a cute comment. Im not arguing one way or the other. Im just explaiing how ending the fast when the clock says 7:00 is easier thatn when it says 8:00. Even if you dont agree, do you really not see how somebody can view it that way?

  6. Ok, Yankel, that makes sense.

    Go make a whole war to end DST two months earlier and upset the entire secular Israeli society because it “doesn’t pas” to start davening an hour later ??!!

  7. No it doesnt make sense. we havent been discussing that point.
    (keep in mind most of secular Israeli society fasts yom kippur)
    I for one dont find it that much more difficult when fast ends at say 8:00 instead of 7:00. However I do see how it makes sense that somebody does find it more difficult. Dont you?
    (again we arent discussing if just becasue of that difficulty its worth abandoning DST earlier, or the merits of easing that “hardship” by davening later)

  8. Yankel, no hard feelings, I was trying to joke back about not fasting (as my primary YK avodah) and I do understand in the sense that 17 Tamuz is always harder than 10 Teves … lateness of the fast and the weather are both factors. If I were not in shul, but sitting at home watching the clock, then 7:00 might be nicer than 8:00. But really DST is about the cost of doing business after dark. I think it is silly to be talking of it in terms of an hour of fasting.

  9. Hey, it’s time for all you guys to get more spiritual. Forget about your tayvas and try to get into YK when it comes. If you were at my shul and davened Neilah here, you wouldn’t want to hear the shofar for another hour anyway.
    Time to think about changing- your attitude, not the clock. If you really visualize those gates of teshuva closing, how could you think of food?

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