Shabbat is when now?

[cellio]

I had not previously heard that Samoa is moving across the international date line this week, meaning that they will go from 11:59PM Thursday to 12:00AM Saturday, skipping Friday. This raises an interesting question for any Jews living there -- when is Shabbat?

According to one answer there, now it'll be Sunday -- we count days, not secular designations.

(Testing mobile posting.)

Comments

[dagonell.livejournal.com]

I had this wonderful visual image of all the Samoans jumping into the water, each using one hand to lift the country out of the water and using the other hand to dog-paddle over to its new location. :) This may be an academic question, are there any Orthodox Jews in Samoa that would be affected? -- Dagonell

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

Cool. Time to buy a new atlas!

But as to your halachic question: most people in that part of the world hold by a "halachic" date line that is independent of the Int'l Date Line: either 90deg west of Jerusalem or 180deg away from Jerusalem. That works out to mostly the same as the secular week, but Japan (for the 90-deg) and Hawaii (for the 180-deg) can be different.

For those who keep "Shabbat is when the secular calendar says it's Saturday", though, I'd imagine they'd have a problem.

I love this stuff.

[magid.livejournal.com]

According to this BBC article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16351377), they moved across the date line in the other direction 119 years ago, so perhaps they're just moving into standard alignment again, and had Shabbat off a day until now?

[littlekatydid.livejournal.com]

Hi there, Paquerette suggested we become friends, as I'm starting (or trying to get up the nerve to start) the conversion process myself. :)
Friends?