Over the weekend, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said that he intends to cancel daylight saving time in his country. "Inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation," he explained. Daylight saving time in the U.S. began this year on March 10 and ended on November 3. In fact, daylight saving time in the U.S. is longer than in the European Union (March 31 to October 27) and Israel (March 29 to October 27).
The first to think of the idea of daylight saving time, or at least moving the clocks forward, was Benjamin Franklin – a statesman, scientist, writer and inventor. In 1784, when he was the U.S. ambassador to France, he offered the Parisians an efficiency suggestion. Instead of getting up late and staying up at night - get up at sunrise and go to bed early. In this way, Franklin calculated, the French could save no less than 29 million kilos of wax for candle making each year.
But the idea was not implemented, and it was only during World War I that countries began to switch to daylight saving time, due to a shortage of energy sources. After Germany, Britain and Russia switched to daylight saving time in 1916, the United States also adopted the system in 1918. American farmers were less fond of the clock change, which they claimed negatively affected their schedules. After the war, Congress repealed the system, but New York led the way in its use as a local choice.
During World War II, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt instituted annual daylight saving time ("wartime") that lasted until 1945. Between 1945 and 1966, there was no federal law on the subject, leading to a messy system of local policies. By 1965, some U.S. states had adopted daylight saving time, others had not, and some had implemented the opposite policy of moving the clocks back.
Things have changed since then, and in recent decades the United States has observed daylight saving time, which begins on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November. However, there are two states in the United States that do not switch to daylight saving time – Hawaii and Arizona.
Today, there are quite a few countries that do not switch to daylight saving time, including China, India and Russia.
And what about Israel?
Daylight saving time was implemented in Israel during the British Mandate. During the first half of World War II, the British also implemented daylight saving time in the winter to save energy. During the second half of the war and until 1946, the British Mandate moved the clocks forward one hour from April to October.
Six days after David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, the young country switched to daylight saving time. It lasted in 1948 until the last day of October.
The moving of the clocks during the summer months continued until 1957. The longest daylight saving time during that period lasted 184 days, when in 1949 the clocks in Israel were moved forward one hour on April 30 and returned to winter time on October 31 of that year. The shortest time lasted 91 days, when in 1954 and 1955 the clocks were moved forward one hour in mid-June and Israel returned to winter time a few days before Rosh Hashanah.
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US President-elect Donald Trump says daylight savings time is 'Inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation'
(Photo: Evan Vucci/AP)
In 1958, daylight saving time was abolished in Israel. Even then, there was pressure from religious sources, who warned of the desecration of the Sabbath and the problems created during the recitation of the Selichot in the month of Elul and the Tishrei holidays. The then-minister of the Interior, Israel Bar-Yehuda, informed the government ministries that his ministry had held a referendum on daylight saving time a year earlier, but the results of the referendum were not uniform. Nevertheless, the minister decided to cancel the clock change.
In 1980, daylight saving time was introduced for only 42 days. This is because the High Court of Justice ruled that daylight saving time should be introduced, but did not say how many days. Minister Yosef Burg decided to examine the effect of daylight saving time on energy savings, and therefore determined that the clock would be moved forward one hour on August 2 and set back a few days before Yom Kippur. In the meantime, the minister appointed six teams to examine the effect of the additional hour of daylight.
In early 1984, when Burg was still in the Interior Ministry, the Shamir government decided to reinstate daylight saving time, and in that year it was implemented from May 5 to August 25, a few days before the Mizrahi Jewish community begins to say Selichot early in the morning throughout the month of Elul. A year passed and daylight saving time was implemented again – this time from mid-May to the end of August.
Years passed, Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz of the Shas Party was appointed Minister of the Interior, and he too opposed the implementation of daylight saving time. Industrialists, companies and even the education system threatened to switch to daylight saving time themselves, so it was introduced for several years, starting around Passover and continuing until a few days before Rosh Hashanah.
In the early 1990s, it was determined that the minister of the Interior would decide on the date of daylight saving time. For example, in 1996, then-Interior Minister Haim Ramon of the Labor Party instituted daylight saving time for 185 days – from the end of March until the end of Rosh Hashanah. Minister Eli Suissa of Shas also set the clock times for three years – which lasted between 154 and 177 days, and in the last two years of his term, Israel switched to winter time before Rosh Hashanah.
Over the years, many changes have occurred. Ultimately, in 2013, when Gideon Sa’ar was minister of the Interior, it was determined that daylight saving time in Israel would always take place between the Thursday and Friday before the last Sunday in March at 2:00 a.m., and would continue until the last Sunday in October at 2:00 a.m. However, calls to abolish daylight saving time still occasionally emerge – and, conversely, calls to abolish winter time and institute daylight saving time all year round.
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Minister Yosef Burg investigated examine the effect of daylight saving time on energy savings
(Photo: David Rubinger)
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And it turns out that the change between summer and winter time can save lives. On September 5, 1999, two car bombs exploded in Haifa and Tiberias. Three suicide bombers, Arab residents of Israel, were killed.
The security establishment estimated that the terrorists' handlers – residents of the Palestinian Authority – activated the bombs according to the summer time that was then in the Authority. Israel had switched to winter time two days earlier and the terrorists believed that the charges would be activated according to the time used in Israel. What happened was that the charges exploded an hour before the scheduled time and many Israelis were saved. However, another theory was put forward that a "work accident" caused the two charges to explode before the scheduled time.