After weeks of waking up to predawn darkness, following a bitter political battle that had everyone using more electricity in the mornings, Israel is finally turning back the clocks one hour, on Sunday morning at 2 AM (to 1 AM).
In the past, the fight over Daylight Savings Time usually resulted in a Haredi victory, where the clocks would be turned back right before Yom Kippur, shortening the perceived time of the fast by one hour. But as a result, it left Sukkot vacationers with an hour less daylight for trips.
The Hilonim (secular) claimed that there would be tremendous savings in electricity by delaying the clock changing until late October, and it had the added advantage of sticking it to the religious.
This year, the Hilonim won, and for weeks now, most of the country have been getting up and getting dressed in complete darkness, waiting for the sun to rise, even to the point where children were catching school buses just after dawn. It’s hard to say there was any electrical savings when everyone had to turn on all the lights in the house an hour before dawn, just to pretend morning actually arrived.
One can only hope that someone in charge learned a lesson from this idiocy, and it doesn’t repeat itself next year.
And while they’re at it, three months of summer vacation was way too much too, maybe it’s time for all schools to start on Rosh Chodesh Elul.