Time

I’m here in Baltimore, escorting my colleague Ofer Glanz, JDC’s Director for the former Soviet Union. 

It’s been a fascinating day, meeting inspiring leadership from the Associated, and sharing our work together in Odessa and across the former Soviet republics.

There was an interesting conversation about how many time-zones we cover in the FSU. In the past we’ve said nine – since the eleven time zones of the Russian federation were reduced to nine in 2010 by then-President Medvedev. But you could still go far East and not everyone “got the memo” about the time-zone change. So even though it was nine, eleven was still a good answer.

But, since the Russian state extends to Kalingrad (the Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania) eleven is still, formally, the correct answer. 

But - at the same time - so is nine (since they skip two between Kalingrad and the west of Russia). 

With me so far? Airports follow local time … but all train stations, no matter where they are, follow Moscow time.

But then … as Ofer pointed out in a meeting this afternoon … we work in 24 time zones.

Because what we do in Odessa, for example, has a ripple effect – in Ashkelon, in Baltimore … and around the Jewish world. 

How we build community, empower new role-models, pilot new enterprises – these will ripple throughout twenty-four time zones.