The tech community often hears that the Daylight Savings Time \t\t(DST) issue is political in Israel and is solved by parliament debate.<\/p>\n
In fact, this parliament debate includes extreme calls to cancel \t\tDST altogether, on one hand, and spread it to the entire year (thus \t\teffectively moving Israel to a different time zone, GMT+3, from the \t\tcurrent GMT+2), on the other.<\/p>\n
As this is definitely puzzling to non-locals, I bring the \t\tbackground here, explaining the interests that clash.<\/p>\n
As with any political issue, different groups of population are \t\tinterested in it being resolved in their way and oppose each other.<\/p>\n
In classifying these groups, we need to understand two different \t\taxes: religious vs. secular and Eastern vs. Western.<\/p>\n
When I speak about religious, I always mean here Jewish \t\treligion; other religions did not contribute to this dialogue in \t\tIsrael as their influence is much less and they are not concerned with \t\tthe Daylight Savings Time issue.<\/p>\n
The secular want the DST to be longer since it<\/p>\n
The religious advance the following reasons to shorten the DST:<\/p>\n
Yom Kippur is a day of complete fast (no eating or \t\t\t\t\t\tdrinking allowed) that Jewish tradition mandates on all males \t\t\t\t\t\tabove the age of 13 and females above the age of 12. Sick people \t\t\t\t\t\tmay receive rabbinical relief which may be partial (drinking only \t\t\t\t\t\tsmall quantities in specified intervals of time) if the decease is \t\t\t\t\t\tserious but not fully life-threatening.<\/p>\n
Many say that this is the most important day in the Jewish \t\t\t\t\t\tcalendar.<\/p>\n
Since the Jewish calendar is combined lunar \u2013 solar (months \t\t\t\t\t\tbeing defined by the moon and additional thirteenth month being \t\t\t\t\t\tadded to leap years to synchronize the year with the sun on the \t\t\t\t\t\taverage), the exact Gregorian date changes from year to year \t\t\t\t\t\twithin September-October range.<\/p>\n
The fast starts shortly before sunset and ends the following \t\t\t\t\t\tday after dark; this makes approximately 25 hours of dry fast.<\/p>\n
When Yom Kippur falls during DST, this means that it starts \t\t\t\t\t\tlater and finishes later.<\/p>\n
The religious parties that argue against DST, want the fast \t\t\t\t\t\tto start earlier and end earlier. In this way, the evening part is \t\t\t\t\t\tlonger and the day part is shorter, while the total time is the \t\t\t\t\t\tsame.<\/p>\n
By this argument, the evening part is not difficult anyway \t\t\t\t\t\tsince people have just finished eating and drinking, and the day \t\t\t\t\t\tpart is shorter and consequently easier.<\/p>\n
Personally, I can confirm this argument from my personal \t\t\t\t\t\texperience but I view it as rather populistic; people can survive \t\t\t\t\t\tthe \u201clonger\u201d Yom Kippur and the difference is not significant.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
Passover is probably the next most important holiday \t\t\t\t\t\tin the Jewish tradition. It falls in March-April.<\/p>\n
It starts with the ceremony of Passover Seder in the evening \t\t\t\t\t\tof the first day. It is performed at home with one’s family and it \t\t\t\t\t\tcan be started only after dark.<\/p>\n
The main commandment of the Passover Seder is incumbent upon \t\t\t\t\t\teach father, to tell his children – including small children – \t\t\t\t\t\tabout the Exodus of Jews from the ancient Egypt as much as \t\t\t\t\t\tpossible.<\/p>\n
There is a prescribed text – Haggadah – and additional \t\t\t\t\t\texplanations from the father and other participants are \t\t\t\t\t\tencouraged.<\/p>\n
If DST is started before the Seder, the Seder starts later \t\t\t\t\t\tand small children often fall asleep before being able to listen \t\t\t\t\t\tabout Exodus, or are able to listen very little.<\/p>\n
Rabbis generally recommend giving small children a nap \t\t\t\t\t\tduring the day before the Seder but I have not been able to do it \t\t\t\t\t\twith mine.<\/p>\n
In my personal view, it is a serious problem; I definitely \t\t\t\t\t\tprefer DST to start after the Seder. However, it is definitely \t\t\t\t\t\tsurvivable, as shows the example of Jews who live in places where \t\t\t\t\t\tthe clock is set in such way that the sunset is late (e.g., \t\t\t\t\t\tMoscow, Russia).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
Jewish tradition prohibits any commercial activities \t\t\t\t\t\tduring Jewish Sabbath. Sabbath ends at dark on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Restaurants, movie theaters and other fun centers that cater \t\t\t\t\t\tto religiously observant and traditional public, open shortly \t\t\t\t\t\tafter dark.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tTraditional<\/em> here refers to people who adhere to Jewish \t\t\t\t\t\ttradition but not with the full seriousness usually given to a \t\t\t\t\t\treligious commandment. \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n When it gets dark late on Saturday night, places of \t\t\t\t\t\tentertainment open late, and this leaves less time for fun.<\/p>\n IMHO, this argument is half populistic, and another half is \t\t\t\t\t\tan attempt to keep the traditional youth that is not necessarily \t\t\t\t\t\tvery serious about their religious observance, “in the fold”. \t\t\t\t\t\tThose who advance this argument, are concerned that if Sabbath \t\t\t\t\t\tends late, the youth may start patronizing activities that are \t\t\t\t\t\topen during Sabbath, thus desecrating it. Personally, I am \t\t\t\t\t\tskeptical about these attempts at keeping youth in the fold.<\/p>\n Note also that this argument is against DST at all rather \t\t\t\t\t\tthan against it starting early in the Spring and ending late in \t\t\t\t\t\tthe Fall.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n Jewish tradition prescribes three communal prayer \t\t\t\t\t\tservices during weekdays, the morning one, the afternoon one and \t\t\t\t\t\tthe evening one. The morning service is rather long (at least 40 \t\t\t\t\t\tminutes long, and could be a over an hour on certain special days) \t\t\t\t\t\twhile the other two are shorter.<\/p>\n Most of the morning service should take place after dawn, \t\t\t\t\t\twith only some beginning parts may be done before dawn.<\/p>\n The religious life in Israel is organized in such way that \t\t\t\t\t\tpeople usually live in closely-knit communities organized around \t\t\t\t\t\tsynagogues, so that each family lives within walking distance of \t\t\t\t\t\ttheir synagogue. People attend the morning services in their \t\t\t\t\t\tcommunal synagogues while the afternoon and sometimes evening \t\t\t\t\t\tservices they attend near their workplaces.<\/p>\n Different communities have sometimes different customs in \t\t\t\t\t\ttheir prayer services, and in this way people attend longer \t\t\t\t\t\tmorning services with synagogues of their custom while shorter \t\t\t\t\t\tservices they may attend elsewhere.<\/p>\n If DST is extended late into the Fall or spread for the \t\t\t\t\t\tentire year, some synagogues would be forced to make their morning \t\t\t\t\t\tservices later. The result would be that some people would be \t\t\t\t\t\tunable to attend morning services near their home and and arrive \t\t\t\t\t\tat their work on time. They would have to look for synagogues near \t\t\t\t\t\ttheir workplaces.<\/p>\n If DST is extended well into November (not to say about \t\t\t\t\t\tspreading it to the entire year), this would disrupt the religious \t\t\t\t\t\tlife as many people would not be able to attend morning services \t\t\t\t\t\tin their communal synagogues. In addition, there would be shortage \t\t\t\t\t\tof synagogue space for morning services in industrial zones and \t\t\t\t\t\tother places of work.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n The Jews in Israel are still divided into two large groups by \t\ttheir origin:<\/p>\n Western Jews come from the cultures that have been exposed to \t\telectric light longer; they go to bed later and get up later. \t\tNormally, in the morning they would just send their kids to \t\tkindergartens and schools and go to work themselves, not doing \t\tanything else, except possibly morning prayers \u2013 those who do this.<\/p>\n Eastern Jews come from cultures in which people get up early, \t\thave siesta \u2013 an afternoon nap \u2013 and tend to go to bed early although \t\tthe latter is not always the case as they get their sleep during the \t\tsiesta.<\/p>\n Siesta was the traditional Mediterranean way to survive summer \t\tafternoon heat, and it used to be a custom in Israel for the entire \t\tyear until it gradually disappeared with the advance of \t\tairconditioning.<\/p>\n However, Eastern Jews still get up early in the morning, go to \t\ttheir small neighborhood shop to get fresh food, make phone calls to \t\teach other and even make visits, and otherwise consider this to be \t\ttheir time to do things, not just prepare for work and school.<\/p>\n This division is no longer clear-cut: as Eastern Jews make a \t\tmajority in Israel, many Western Jews have changed their custom to the \t\tprevailing one to some extent.<\/p>\n \t\tAccording to the above analysis, secular Ashkenazi<\/em> parties \t\tare for extending DST as much as possible while Sefardi<\/em> \t\treligious parties are in favor of cutting it as much as possible. \t<\/p>\n \t\tThere are no strictly Ashkenazi secular parties but there are \t\tideologically secular parties that come and go and represent mostly \t\tAshkenazi population, and they indeed support DST. When they join the \t\tgoverning coalition, they write DST into the coalition agreements and \t\tget their hand. The last time this happened in the Fall of 2013 when \t\tthe coalition included a new secular party, Yesh Atid<\/em>. See \t\tbelow links to a few articles about this change. \t<\/p>\n \t\tThe party that represents the religious Sephardim, is called Shas<\/em><\/a> and it has \t\tbeen a part of Israeli politics for already 30 years. They indeed have \t\talways been fighting against DST. In the Fall of 2013 they were \t\tsitting in the opposition and this allowed Yesh Atid<\/em> to gain \t\tthe extension of DST. \t<\/p>\n Here is more to read, although much of what I wrote above, is \t\tnot available in these references:<\/p>\n \t\t©Baruch Youssin 2014<\/small> \t<\/p>\n \t\tRead also: <\/strong> \t<\/p>\n The tech community often hears that the Daylight Savings Time (DST) issue is political in Israel and is solved by parliament debate. In fact, this parliament debate includes extreme calls to cancel DST altogether, on one hand, and spread it to the entire year (thus effectively moving Israel to a different time zone, GMT+3, from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baruchyoussin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baruchyoussin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baruchyoussin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baruchyoussin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baruchyoussin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/baruchyoussin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302,"href":"https:\/\/baruchyoussin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baruchyoussin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baruchyoussin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baruchyoussin.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
The interests and reasons on the Eastern \u2013 Western axis<\/span><\/h2>\n
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How this transforms into actual politics<\/span><\/h2>\n
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