After 5 days of stormy weather Purim turned out to be a wild time for all. Think Halloween on steroids. Growing up in Chicago, living in Los Angeles and Portland I never knew Purim was such an intense celebration. All ages participate, most schools are closed for the day and there is security everywhere. I'm going to let the photos speak for themselves. We walked to the "shuk" Mahane Yehhuda market and to our surprise even a few seriously orthodox got into the spirit. The Chabad folks (these are Jews who believe that all Jews are equal in their Jewishness before God)... or so that is what one of the nice men told me when he handed us bags of candy. Not all Jews believe that, I will do a blog on that just before we leave the country... if you catch my drift.
We then walked towards Ben Yehuda the main pedestrian street figuring we'd find some costumes, we heard music turned a corner and the first sight we saw were two soldiers eating cotton candy. We struck gold and saw 3 bands, tightrope walkers, people on stilts, dancers and some of the most creative costumes imaginable, but not a witch was to be found. The security was very intense as the Arabs are very upset about Israel wanting to have Rachel's Tomb and the Tombs of the Patriarchs be National Heritage Sights. Now Palestinians are throwing stones at tourists in the old city... OY, why can't we be friends already. There were police and soldiers everywhere including roofs ... like an uzi parade.
It's now 9pm here and fire crackers are going off in all directions and children in our apartment building are laughing and screeching:-) I'm ready for bed.
uzi's on parade for purim. that is a symbol i won't forget. purim, an entirely different experience there. will you get to do passover there too?
ReplyDeleteyou must be tough to live in certain parts of the mid-east. a suicide bomb. and israeli's or he lebanese quickly clean up the mess and get on with life. there's a brutal yet almost optimistic message there.