Israel turns back clocks overnight as daylight saving time ends
Israelis get an extra hour of sleep overnight Saturday-Sunday as clocks wind back an hour at 2 a.m.
Israel returned to standard time overnight between Saturday and Sunday, marking the end of daylight saving time for the year.
At 2 a.m. early Sunday, October 26, clocks moved back to 1 a.m., giving Israelis an extra hour of sleep.
Daylight saving time will return on March 27, 2026.
The time change coincides with that of the European Union, but not with the United States, which will switch back on November 2.
In 2013, the Knesset passed legislation extending daylight saving time from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October.
Before that, standard time would begin the Saturday night before Yom Kippur, so that the day’s fast, which is pegged to nightfall, would end — but also begin — 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.
As a result, the seasonal time transition was often contentious, entangled in political debates between religious and secular parties before the 2013 change was implemented.