Daylight savings time ends overnight

Israel falls back one hour at 2 a.m.; mobile phone customers prepare for clock glitches

The Time of Israel



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Last November, the Knesset passed legislation extending daylight savings time until the end of October. Before that, standard time would begin the Saturday night before the Jewish High Holiday of Yom Kippur, so that the day’s fast, which is pegged to nightfall, would end an hour earlier.

Because the Hebrew calendar is lunar, Yom Kippur can fall between mid-September and mid-October, which used to mean that Israelis returned to standard time as much as a month and a half before most other countries, where daylight savings time ends in late October or early November. As a result, the issue of the seasonal time transition became contentious among Israelis, and was caught up in political tensions between religious and secular politicians.

Religious parties generally pushed for the early time change to ease the Yom Kippur fast, and some secular activists protested that the change was unnecessarily inconvenient and expensive. They pointed to a relatively early loss of daylight hours and a resultant rise in electricity bills as well as car accidents as people who would otherwise drive home from work in daylight were forced to drive in darkness.

On September 28, the date which would have marked the end of daylight savings time in Israel had the Knesset not passed legislation extending the period, Israelis found their morning routine slightly askew after a computer glitch caused their clocks to be set back an hour overnight.

The problem was acute in the Palestinian Authority as well, where the government also pushed back the start of winter time, according to the Ma’an news agency.

Israelis and Palestinians who possess older mobile phones, tablets, and computers may on Sunday once again find themselves waking up at the wrong time due to a similar glitch. Mobile service providers advised customers to pay special attention to their phones, and set their devices manually if the clock does not turn back automatically at 2 a.m.