Daylight Savings Time Ends

Lets talk Daylight Savings Time. According to the Israel Government Portal the reasons for enforcing Daylight Savings are: savings in energy, maximum use of the workday and accident prevention. All these make sense. Starting the day earlier means less dark hours and therefore less electricity, rising closer to sunrise means a longer naturally lighted workday (I have heard some people care about this), and less use of headlights means less accidents (believe it or not, this is proven). Israel is close to the end of its time zone and it gets light very early here. Even now that we are going into fall it gets light around 5.45am. So why the hell are we leaving Daylight Saving Time tonight, Oct 4th, when the US it ends on Nov 2nd.

As usual its the religious who have their way. According to the very informative Israel Government Portal, there has been a long and often acrimonious debate around Daylight Savings. So even though we can save billions and live a greener life, we leave Daylight Savings Time before everyone else so the religious population will not be "inconvenienced". It seems moving the clock forward to Daylight Savings, moves sunrise one hour later and so makes it more difficult to get to work after morning prayers. It apparently also makes fasting on Yom Kippur (which is next week, hence the timing) and the Ninth of Av easier. You see, it easier to fast before bedtime. The fast ends at sunset, which is later during Daylight Savings, meaning more fasting during the day. And so we need to end that wicked Daylight Savings Time now, so all those who fast will have it easier.

Here in Israel we are concerned that the religious have no problem getting to work on time and have a easy fast. 19% of Israelis consider themselves religious or ultra-Orthodox, we sure look after our minorities.