Minister of Interior Ayelet Shaked has announced that she is going to push through an amendment to the law that sets the dates for DST. Shaked wants "Winter Time" to end 3 weeks earlier, at the beginning of March, instead of at the end of March.
According to Shaked, the kids will still go to school in the light, and people will still have time to daven before work even with the new timing of DST, and we will have the added benefit of being more in line with the clocks of the USA where DST is adjusted at the beginning of March.
source: Israel Hayom
I am not sure why we need to be in line with the USA clocks, though I do admit that as an expat from the USA it can get difficult to know or remember what time it is in the US during those gap periods where we have already switched over and they have not yet, or vice versa and this will ease that.
MK Uri Maklev (UTJ) is opposed to this change. According to Maklev the calendars for the year are already printed and you cannot just change the clocks in the middle of the year. Doing so will cause people to be mechalel shabbos, as they will continue to follow the times printed in the calendars, even though they would be wrong if this goes through..
source: Hamechadesh
Maklev is not wrong, though I am not sure the guy printing a calendar is the one to be deciding policy. It would make sense to pass such a law to go into effect in the coming year instead of immediately.
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We've been on the same DST shift schedule as the EU for the last number of years - and given their proximity to Israel, it makes more sense to stick with that that to try to be the same as the US. In fact, our being on "winter time" whilst the US is on "summer time" actually makes it easier for us to work with the US, since there's only a six-hour difference with the east coast, rather than the usual seven.
ReplyDelete"though I am not sure the guy printing a calendar is the one to be deciding policy"
ReplyDeleteThat's not the point. The government set the prior dates, and then the printers followed suit. The point is, if you are going to make a change, give people some warning so they can deal with it in advance. I don't think there is any emergency that the proposed change cannot be delayed until the following year.