Clocks in Israel sprung forward overnight with start of daylight saving

Israel’s summer began overnight Thursday-Friday, with clocks springing forward one hour, from 2.a.m. to 3 a.m, marking the start of daylight saving time.

Daylight saving time will end on October 31, 2021.

In 2013, the Knesset passed legislation extending the period from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October.

Before that legislation was passed, standard time would begin the Saturday night before Yom Kippur, so that the day’s fast, which is pegged to nightfall, would end an hour “earlier.”

Israelis enjoy the beach in Tel Aviv on March 23, 2021. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

Last year, Interior Minister Aryeh Deri sought to delay the switch to daylight savings until May 1 in a bid to discourage pedestrian traffic in the streets in the evening and promote social distancing, as part of the effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

However, a day after he floated the measure Deri conceded that the move would not be possible as it was too late to synchronize the change with programming on computers and cellphones.