Middle East 08

 I spent another day in Jerusalem at the Jewish Agency, learning about the two holidays here in Israel this week.  In addition, I got to see a movie that was done very intimately depicting a family who’s young son is missing after a bomb exploded at his bus stop while he was on the way to his base. Tuesday at 7pm began Yom Haatzmut; the official Memorial Day for fallen Soldiers (as opposed to Holocaust Rememberence Day, Yom HaShoah, last week).  At 7pm, everything in all of Israel shuts down,there is another siren signalling everyone to freeze for 1 minute; same drill, cars stop in the middle of the road, people freeze, life stops.  We went to Kikar Rabin for the event.  There were thousands of people gathered at the square (Kikar Rabin is the memorial for Yizhak).  There were performances of all sad songs, ones that we learned about at the Jewish Agency,  huge screens showing people talking about loved ones they’ve lost, and a real feeling of togetherness.  At 11am Wednesday, a 2 minute siren signalled the end of Yom Haatzmut, and the beginning of Yom Hazikaron.  Below is a link..

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgFaxP0Xx7U&feature=related

 Yom Hazikaron in Israel is the equivalent of the 4th of July.

 However, Israeli’s are so incredibly proud of their country and independence, that they take it to a whole new level.  This year is Israel’s 60th birthday.  I have no idea how this compared to the 59th, but, holy sh*t.  I though Israeli’s were crazy before.  Last night, I went to a barbecue on a rooftop, 1 or 100 that I had heard about.  From there, we could see the fireworks and lazer show at the beach.

 There were again, crazy performances going on at Kikar Rabin.  After the barbecue, we stopped by a couple of places of friends on the way to an area of the city called Florentine.  Florentine last night had the makings of disaster.  I imagine its like the running of the bulls in Pamplona.  I’ll be uploading videos later of the craziness that happened. there were thousands of people in the streets, everywhere, people dancing on cars, concerts everywhere; it was total mayhem.  fun mayhem.  I danced with a crazy sect of Nachman Jews.  Good times by all.

 Today, there is an air show down at the beach, parties all along the coast, and the party continues through the day.  The air show was awesome.. until one parachuter misread the wind and ended up injuring a bunch of people.  But, the beach was fun, tons of people, all very proud of their Air Force and their Country.  Its a much different feeling here than the 4th of July in the States.

 School was off for the week, and, the woman I had been babysitting for got fired, so I’m out of that job.  Tonight is Shabbat; I’m once again having a big potluck Shabbat on the roof of our apartment and taking it easy after that because I have a lot of work to do for the coming week.  One of my women from my Nepali Women’s Group was invited to speak at a Human Trafficking Seminar on Tuesday in Haifa, so I’m going to accompany her up there and then rush back to make it back to ulpan!

Everything else is good. i hope everyone had good weeks~ a shout out
 to all of the Mommies on the list – HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!!!!!

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.