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Inquiry regarding Shabbat times update frequency and Timezone alignment
Hi, I fetch Shabbat times from your site every 90 seconds for a system in Israel.
- When exactly are the start/end times updated in your database?
- Is the update synced to Israel time? I need to ensure the data doesn't refresh according to US time, which would be half a day too late for us.
Thanks!
Customer support service by UserEcho
No, sfirat haomer is NOT changed by the tzeit time. The Shabbat Times API results will change once per WEEK, not once per DAY, every Sunday at midnight in the city’s local time zone
If you need the omer for today, you will need to first fetch the time of tzeit (and there are multiple options) for Tel Aviv using the Zmanim API and then you should compare that with the local time in Tel Aviv. Then, construct second URL for the Jewish calendar REST API (not the Shabbat Times API) and fetch the omer data for today.
Here's a vibe-coded version in JavaScript that you can see for yourself
https://gist.github.com/mjradwin/b33fbd222ab9bbe84d7eff81295fdc4a
If you're using our Shabbat Times REST API the documentation says: "This API generates results for a given location on a rolling weekly time window. Weekly calculations change every Sunday at midnight in the city’s local time zone."
If your system is in Israel and you are requesting candle lighting times for a city in Israel, it will be synchronized to the timezone Asia/Jerusalem. If your system is in Israel and you were requesting candle lighting times for Paris, France, then it would be synchronized to timezone Europe/Paris.
The Shabbat Times API uses a similar URL and response format as our full Jewish calendar REST API, but offers less control over the dates and times. If you find you want more fine-grained control over the date ranges, or what kinds of events are included and which are excluded, we recommend using the full Jewish calendar REST API instead.