The Supreme Court ordered Interior Minister Yosef Burg yesterday to introduce daylight saving time in Israel without undue delay. The 2-1 majority decision also cautioned the Minister not to resort to specious arguments as a pretext not to implement the order.
Representatives of Burg, who is a leader of the National Religious Party, had argued that daylight saving time would save only negligible amounts of energy and would create difficulties for Orthodox Jews because they would have to rise earlier for their morning prayers and the Sabbath would end later. They also said that the summer time could not be effected immediately because airlines serving Israel would first have to reprint their schedules.
But the court’s ruling was hailed in most of the media today. It was initiated on an action brought by Zeev Segal, an engineer from Ramat Gan, who has been conducting a public campaign in favor of daylight saving time as a means of saving energy. Energy Minister Yitzhak Modai welcomed the ruling.
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