A couple of weeks ago there were widespread reports of problems in the tz database's updates getting propagated to end users in Israel. Many cellphones running Android, BlackBerry, iOS, and Symbian were still based on tz release 2012g or earlier, i.e., they had not updated even to tz release 2012h (2012-10-26), much less to the current rules for Israel as per tz release 2013d (2013-07-05). Hundreds of thousands of cellphones were reportedly affected by the problem, and some cellphone companies worked around the problem by advising their users to switch to Athens time. Unfortunately, Europe/Athens is also incorrect for Israel, as it gets the transition wrong by two hours this fall and by 49 hours next spring. And even if users were advised to switch back to Asia/Jerusalem after next month I wouldn't be surprised if some users forget, and run into a similar problem in March. I wonder why the cellphones' copies of the tz database are not being updated? My sources: Elis N. Israel does the time warp; daylight savings glitch wreaks havoc. Jerusalem Post 2013-09-08 http://www.jpost.com/Business/Business-Features/Israel-does-the-time-warp-da... Winer S. New daylight savings schedule baffles cellphones. The Times of Israel 2013-09-08 http://www.timesofisrael.com/new-daylight-savings-schedule-baffles-cellphone... Schuster R. Israel's mobile users go Greek. Haaretz 2013-09-08 http://www.haaretz.com/business/tech-roundup/1.545875