danielrosehilldanielrosehill/Israel-Research-Skills/skills/israel-opening-hours/SKILL.md

israel-opening-hours

Skill0 starsChanged 30 days agoMITView on GitHub

Answer "is this Israeli business or office open", "what time does it close Friday", "will it be open after Shabbat", or "is it open on chol hamoed" — gather the stated hours (Google, the business's own site, easy.co.il, Hebrew listings), translate Shabbat- and holiday-relative wording (e.g. "until an hour before Shabbat", "an hour after Shabbat ends") and turn it into clock times for the actual date using that city's candle-lighting and havdalah times. Use for any opening-hours question about a business or office in Israel, especially around Friday, Saturday night and Jewish holidays.

In this repository12 other files it gives its agents.
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- israel-electrical-compatibilitySkill
- israeli-medicationsSkill
- israeli-offices-guideSkill
- israeli-phone-numbersSkill
- israel-price-checkSkill
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The file

We split this skill into the rules it gives an agent

6 rules. About 0 are common, 6 are distinctive, and 0 are very specific to this project.

≈0
Common · estimate
Many files like this have a rule of this kind.
≈6
Distinctive · estimate
This author's own choices. Worth a look.
0
Very specific
Tied to their project's names, files or tools. Probably skip.

Common
Distinctive
Very specific

Distinctive:
Default to today. "Before Shabbat" means the coming Friday.
line 31
Distinctive:
If the date is Yom Kippur, answer now.
line 57
Distinctive:
When sources disagree, the business's own current notice beats the directories.
line 71
Distinctive:
Use easy.co.il for the *rule* and Google for the clock times, and tell the user about the disagreement.
line 72
Distinctive:
For Saturday questions, give the reopening time,: not just "closed".
line 88
Distinctive:
Government offices: run on appointment systems, and their stated counter hours often differ between the branch page, the national page and …
line 109

≈ “Common” is an estimate: at least 1 in 5 of the 350,495 skill files we read have a rule of the same kind, not the same words. “Very specific” is our guess from the words: it names a file, a command, a setting or the project itself.

Keep what fits and drop the rest. Your version, ready for your agents.

Files

SKILL.md

Israeli opening hours

Many Israeli businesses set their Friday and Saturday hours relative to Shabbat, not to the clock. Candle lighting moves by about 1 hour 40 minutes between midwinter and midsummer. So a Google listing saying "Friday 08:00–16:00" is often simply wrong for the week in question. "Saturday: Closed" also hides the Saturday-night (motzei Shabbat) reopening, which is usually what the user wants to know.

The job:

collect what the sources state;
work out the rule behind it;
evaluate the rule for the real date.

1. Pin down the business, the city and the date

The city matters. Candle-lighting customs differ:
- Jerusalem: 40 minutes before sunset;
- Haifa (and Zikhron Ya'akov): 30;
- most other places: 20.
Verified on 2026-10-16 for Friday 16 October: Jerusalem 17:26, Haifa 17:35, Tel Aviv 17:47. Mixing up Jerusalem and Tel Aviv puts every derived time out by about 20 minutes. Ask for the city if it is unclear.
Default to today. "Before Shabbat" means the coming Friday.

2. Classify the date first

Find out what kind of day the date is:

ordinary weekday;
Friday / erev Shabbat;
Shabbat;
erev chag;
Yom Tov;
chol hamoed;
a fast day;
Yom Kippur.

Get the candle-lighting and havdalah times for that city and date:

Hebcal's public API returns JSON for a city. These calls worked on 2026-10-16: https://www.hebcal.com/shabbat?cfg=json&geonameid=<id>&M=on.
- Jerusalem 281184, Tel Aviv 293397, Haifa 294801.
- Other places: look up the GeoNames ID.
- Address the location by city or GeoNames ID, not latitude and longitude. The city-specific candle-lighting custom is applied only by city.
Or search "candle lighting <city> <date>" / זמני כניסת שבת <city>.

If the date is Yom Kippur, answer now. Essentially everything Jewish-run is closed nationwide, including Ben Gurion airport, until after havdalah.

3. Collect the stated hours

Sources, by what they are good for:

Source	Good for	Watch out for
Google Business listing	Sunday–Thursday clock times; phone number	Fixed clock times only. Friday is often stale, and Saturday "Closed" hides the evening reopening.
The business's own site or social pages	Current hours, holiday notices	Holiday notices are often posted only a few days ahead
easy.co.il (Israeli business directory)	The merchant's own Hebrew wording, with the Shabbat phrasing intact	Often years out of date. Behind a Cloudflare challenge, so it may need a real browser or search snippets.
A phone call	Certainty	Recommend it before a trip

When sources disagree, the business's own current notice beats the directories. Use easy.co.il for the rule and Google for the clock times, and tell the user about the disagreement.

4. Translate the wording into a rule

references/hebrew-hours-phrases.md has the phrase table. For example, עד שעה לפני כניסת השבת means "until candle lighting minus 60 minutes".

5. Resolve and answer

Lead with the concrete time, then the reasoning. For example: "Closes about 15:56 this Friday — 90 minutes before candle lighting, which is 17:26 in Jerusalem on 16 Oct."
State your confidence and its source. Sunday–Thursday clock times from a recent listing are usually right. A Friday time you derived is an estimate; say so.
For Saturday questions, give the reopening time, not just "closed".
Never present a derived time as authoritative for a trip. Suggest calling, and give the number if you have it.

Israeli context that changes the answer

Not everything closes on Shabbat. Much of Tel Aviv and Haifa trades on Saturday, as do Arab- and Christian-owned businesses everywhere, some kibbutz-run malls, and many restaurants. Apply a Shabbat rule only when the source says so, or the business type clearly implies it (kosher-certified, most supermarket chains, government offices).
The working week is Sunday–Thursday. Government offices and many services are closed on Friday, or open only a short morning. א׳–ה׳ means Sun–Thu, not Mon–Fri.
Erev chag behaves like Friday. Yom Tov behaves like Shabbat. Israel keeps one day of Yom Tov, not two. Rosh Hashana is still two days.
Chol hamoed hours are reduced and vary by branch. Treat any answer as low confidence.
Fast days other than Yom Kippur mostly affect restaurants and cafés.
Ramadan shifts hours in Arab-majority areas, such as East Jerusalem, Nazareth and Umm al-Fahm. The Shabbat calendar does not cover this; say so.
Government offices run on appointment systems, and their stated counter hours often differ between the branch page, the national page and the booking system. Trust them in that order: the branch page beats the national page, and the booking system decides whether you need an appointment.

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