On Wed, Mar 17, 2004, Ira Abramov wrote about "Re: Runtime changing of timezones": > Quoting Nadav Har'El, from the post of Wed, 17 Mar: > > Recently it was announced that the algorithm for determining the date of > > Yom Haaztmaut (as well as Yom Hazicaron and Yom Hashoa) will be changed > > this year, making all known Hebrew calendar software produce "wrong" results. > > what?! where?! are they moving it to a "civilian" date or > fixed-day-of-the-week a-la the US conventions? makes sense for something > like Thanksgiving, but moving Independance day around is odd, since the > exact date has significance...
No. It's not as simple as that. I can't find now a newspaper article on this issue (can somebody find a pointer?), but what I remember reading is that people complained that Yom Haazmaut happens on Monday this year according to the normal He Be-Iyyar date. What's wrong with Yom Haazmaut being on Monday? Nothing really... Except that it makes Yom Hazikkaron on Sunday, which in turn makes the "Erev Yom Hazikkaron" on Motsei Shabat. This in turn, supposedly, means that the people preparing the cerimonies need to work on Shabat, and also that the cerimonies will have to start very late, to allow families to start travelling after the Shabat. So, to solve this, the new rule supposedly says that when Yom Haazmaut is on a Monday, it is moved to Vav be-Iyyar, to the Tuesday. All this would make sense if this was the algorithm all along, but it wasn't, and changing it now pretty-much invalidates every Hebrew calendar software in existance, not to mention printed calendars (I know the Israeli universities are having a lot of mess now because someone changed the vacation days in the middle of a semester...). It also means that software now needs to have ugly "if()s", to account for the rule chaning in a certain year. And now for a bit more detail: He be-Iyyar already can't happen on every day of the week, because of intrinsic rules in the Hebrew calendar that determine the day of pesach (15 in Nisan). He be-Iyyar can only fall on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Saturday. Friday and Saturday were already deamed undersirable for Yom Haazmaut, and caused it to move earlier (to 4 or 3 of Iyyar). But now politicians decided that Monday is also undesirable, moving the holiday to 6th of Iyyar. This means that the only chance we have for ever seeing the Holiday on He Be-Iyyar is when it happens on a Wednesday, which happens about once every 3 years. So teach your children: Yom Haazmaut is rarely in He Be-Iyyar. -- Nadav Har'El | Wednesday, Mar 17 2004, 24 Adar 5764 [EMAIL PROTECTED] |----------------------------------------- Phone: +972-53-790466, ICQ 13349191 |Recursive, adj.: See Recursive http://nadav.harel.org.il | ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
