What Time is It?

This morning many Israeli's woke up very confused. Over night some cell phone providers and my computer turned the clocks back. As we rely more and more on clocks that change automatically this caused a lot of confusion.

In previous years we would turn our clocks back after Shabbat Shuva. This was to appease the Haredi parties as it would allow the Yom Kippor fast to be shorter. A few years ago some Israelis realized that the fast was still the same 25 hours. They began protesting that it wasn't fair that we were on DST shorter than other countries in the world. There was even a petition to boycott changing our clocks back. There were no reports of the effect of the boycott on the protesters. In July the Government passed a law extending Daylight Savings Time until the end of October.

This presented a major challenge for cell phone companies. The cell phone networks were built in 1948 which means they can never be changed. Some cell phone providers had a work around solution by notifying their customers to set their phones to Athens time. Others decided to take the economical approach and let their customers figure out on their own. My iPhone on the Cellcom network was able to make the adjustment. Although my computer on Windows 7 did not.

It will be interesting to see what happens to all the customers who changed there phones to Athens time when it is time to move forward. Israel turns their clocks ahead on Friday March 28th, while in Athens they will move ahead on Sunday March 30th. Once again Israelis will be waking up in the morning asking what time it is.