Godspeed, little ones! Don't forget that the essential ingredient in any successful Lag B'Omer bonfire is butane. Lots and lots of butane.*
*Stahm! (transl.''Only kidding!''.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
And there goes the last little firestarter
Godspeed, little ones! Don't forget that the essential ingredient in any successful Lag B'Omer bonfire is butane. Lots and lots of butane.*
*Stahm! (transl.''Only kidding!''.
Pyros-in-the-making
Here they are, passing merrily by my bus stop. This is in a very tony area of north Tel Aviv--Ramat Aviv Gimel. It's full of huge luxury condo buildings, and more are being built all the time (hence the profusion of lumber scraps around the 'hood). I am not just here to creepily take pictures of children without their knowledge, I tutor a little boy who lives in one of the fancy-pants buildings.
Children+Fire=Jewish Holiday
The classic sign that Lag B'Omer is nigh upon us: Roving gangs of children scavenging for lumber remnants at construction sites to shlep home in stolen shopping carts.
A picture for laura
This impressive-looking pachyderm is part of the indoor playground at ''kanyohn dizengoff''(dizengoff mall) right near my house. Those are red metal stairs underneath the tusks that lead to a slide. . .So, yes, essentially the kids slide out of the elephant's butt. It's pretty great.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Photobomb
I like this shot because it looks like two of the little ghouls are doing a photobomb, giving major stinkeye from the bottom right corner!
Oh, hello creepy-cool street art
I found this wheat-pasted on to one of my building's walls recently. Cool, right? This artist ''gets up'' (to use the parlance of our times) a lot all around TLV but I have no idea who (s)he is. . .
Monday, April 19, 2010
Israeli Soldiers Day and Independence Day
Lots of cars fly flags from their windows and special car flag poles.
Flags flying in my neighborhood
The flags are flown to mark the Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Israeli Independence Day
Yom HaShoah: Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel
I wrote this last week on April 11th, Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day
Today is Yom HaShoah.
Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, inagurated this national holiday in 1951 as an annual country-wide remembrance of the Holocaust.Its formal name is Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laGvura, which means "Day of Remembrance for the Holocaust and its Heroes." But, almost everyone in Israel and abroad simply refer to it as Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Day. Shoah is a Hebrew words that means, roughly, "enormous catastrophe/destruction," and in Israel it it used much more than the English term "Holocaust" to refer to the extermination of Jews during World War II. Starting at sundown on the evening before the 27th of Nisan (a date on the Jewish calender chosen because it falls in between the anniversary beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and Israeli Independence Day), the whole nation remembers the victims and heroes of the Holocaust.
--In the Knesset (the Israeli legislative body), the prime minister, president, and all the MKs gather together with survivors and descendants of survivors, the curators of Yad Vashem (the Israeli Holocaust Museum), the Chief Rabbinate (Counsel of Head Rabbis), representatives from the military, a group of primary, secondary, and university students, and delegates from other countries across the world. After laying memorial wreaths, six Israeli citizens (three survivors of the Holocaust and family members from the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation of survivors) light six candles to represent the six million Jews who perished. The Chief Rabbis read from the Book of Psalms and say the Kaddish (mourning prayer).
Most movingly of all, while everyone assembled stands in respectful silence, the Rabbis recite the names of all of the known victims of the Holocaust. This tradition began in 1989 and was inspired by the poem "Unto Every Person There is a Name" by the Jewish poet, Zelda.
UNTO EVERY PERSON THERE IS A NAME
Unto every person there is a name
Bestowed upon him by God
And given him by his father and mother
Unto every person there is a name
Accorded him by his stature
And the manner of his smile
And given him by his style of dress
Unto every person there is a name
Conferred on him by the mountains
And given him by his neighbors
Unto every person there is a name
Assigned him by his sins
And given him by his yearnings
Unto every person there is a name
Given him by his enemies
And given him by his love
Unto every person there is a name
Derived from his festivals
And given him by his labor
Unto every person there is a name
Presented him by the seasons
And given him by his blindness
Unto every person there is a name
Bestowed on him by the sea
And given him by his death.
In the Schools, students and teachers mark the hag ("holiday)with assemblies, class lessons, and discussions. Even Kitah Aleph (first-grade) students are not considered too little to understand and appreciate the holiday. There is a school-wide tekahs (a ceremony/assembly) every year. Today, some of the girls from the after-school dance program danced, the choir sang, and the drum choir performed a haunting composition meant to mimic the sounds of trains arriving at one of the camps. Students read excerpts from survivor testimonies and recited poems. Six lit candles stood on a table at the side of the stage, representing the six million Jews who perished. It was a very beautiful and moving ceremony. I loved seeing some of my loudest, giggliest, and hyper students take part in the tekes with tremendous maturity and grace.
Many Israeli high school students take part in an international Holocaust education program called the "March of the Living." The program culminates with visits to concentration camp sites in Poland. Shortly before Yom HaShoah student and teacher participants from across the world gather with other members of the Jewish Diaspora as well as non-Jewish peace activists and supporters from many other countries including Poland, Japan, and the United States. Together, the group silently departs from the gates of Auschwitz and walks en masse to the remains of Birkenau. This eponymous march, in between the sites of the two largest Nazi concentration camps, is made every year to remember the death marches from Poland to Germany made by thousands of camp inmates during the final months of the war.
On the Streets all across Israel from the busiest sections of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, to the tiniest Moshav (village), all places of business close at sundown on the eve of Yom HaShoah. This is done as a sign of respect. Remaining open during the holiday is actually against the law. My friend, Jordana called me erev Yom HaShoah this year to report that as she went home right after sundown, she saw two police officers walking down King George with flashlights, peering into the windows of the cafes and kiosks that line the street.
On Television and On the Radio, no commercials are broadcast, and all of the programming is Holocaust-related. Last night, I tuned in to some FM radio station airing recorded testimonies from survivors (including some in English). When I turned on my television, Channel 3 (the national TV news channel) was showing a documentary film on Kristallnacht (the 1938 "Night of Broken Glass," one of the most infamous pograms in Germany, when hundreds of Jewish businesses,synagogues, schools, and homes were destroyed, 90 Jewish Germans were killed, and over twenty-thousand Jewish Germans were sent to concentration camps). The documentary showed indelible images of members of Hitler Youth spitting on Torah scrolls ripped from the arks of Shuls, and Gestapo officers forcing elderly Jews to get on their hands and knees in the street to scrub the cobblestones A flip through other channels showed even more disturbing images, including footage of Nazi medical experiments, and photographs of the corpses and skeletal survivors found by liberating Allied forces at the end of the war.
The Sirens: If you choose, you can avoid a lot of the ceremonies and rituals that mark Yom HaShoah in Israel.Ditch school, stay away from Jerusalem, keep the TV black, turn off your radio, hang out in the religious neighborhoods (because Israeli Haredim ignore the secular remembrance holiday, choosing instead to commemorate the Shoah victims during days of morning proscribed in the Tanakh (like Tish B'Av), avert your eyes from the Israeli flags and blue-and-white banners hanging from many homes' balconies, windows, and front doors. Stay away from all the shuttered cafes and banks and boutiques.
But even if you go to all that effort, you won't be able to avoid 10:00. At ten in the morning on the hag, sirens ring everywhere in Israel for two minutes. At the first blare, people everywhere stop everything they are doing to stand in silence for the two-minute duration of the noise. Observing this moment of silence in a country divided by politics, religiosity, and ethnicity is one of the only things that almost all Israelis do together. People walking in the streets stop in their tracks. Cars and taxis and buses and scooters halt on all the roads and highways, and the drivers and their passengers disembark. Many men, secular and religious, unfold kippot from their pockets and don them for the duration. At my beit sefer, just like hundreds of others across the country, lessons stop without a word, and students rise from their desks along with their teachers.
And then, after exactly two minutes, the sirens go silent. Everyone comes to life--pedestrians walk, car engines turn over, and passengers pile back on their buses. Classes and late breakfasts and cell phone conversations all resume. Ipods headphones are reinserted. But for two minutes, almost the entire country stands together, and remembers.
Today is Yom HaShoah.
Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, inagurated this national holiday in 1951 as an annual country-wide remembrance of the Holocaust.Its formal name is Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laGvura, which means "Day of Remembrance for the Holocaust and its Heroes." But, almost everyone in Israel and abroad simply refer to it as Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Day. Shoah is a Hebrew words that means, roughly, "enormous catastrophe/destruction," and in Israel it it used much more than the English term "Holocaust" to refer to the extermination of Jews during World War II. Starting at sundown on the evening before the 27th of Nisan (a date on the Jewish calender chosen because it falls in between the anniversary beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and Israeli Independence Day), the whole nation remembers the victims and heroes of the Holocaust.
--In the Knesset (the Israeli legislative body), the prime minister, president, and all the MKs gather together with survivors and descendants of survivors, the curators of Yad Vashem (the Israeli Holocaust Museum), the Chief Rabbinate (Counsel of Head Rabbis), representatives from the military, a group of primary, secondary, and university students, and delegates from other countries across the world. After laying memorial wreaths, six Israeli citizens (three survivors of the Holocaust and family members from the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation of survivors) light six candles to represent the six million Jews who perished. The Chief Rabbis read from the Book of Psalms and say the Kaddish (mourning prayer).
Most movingly of all, while everyone assembled stands in respectful silence, the Rabbis recite the names of all of the known victims of the Holocaust. This tradition began in 1989 and was inspired by the poem "Unto Every Person There is a Name" by the Jewish poet, Zelda.
UNTO EVERY PERSON THERE IS A NAME
Unto every person there is a name
Bestowed upon him by God
And given him by his father and mother
Unto every person there is a name
Accorded him by his stature
And the manner of his smile
And given him by his style of dress
Unto every person there is a name
Conferred on him by the mountains
And given him by his neighbors
Unto every person there is a name
Assigned him by his sins
And given him by his yearnings
Unto every person there is a name
Given him by his enemies
And given him by his love
Unto every person there is a name
Derived from his festivals
And given him by his labor
Unto every person there is a name
Presented him by the seasons
And given him by his blindness
Unto every person there is a name
Bestowed on him by the sea
And given him by his death.
In the Schools, students and teachers mark the hag ("holiday)with assemblies, class lessons, and discussions. Even Kitah Aleph (first-grade) students are not considered too little to understand and appreciate the holiday. There is a school-wide tekahs (a ceremony/assembly) every year. Today, some of the girls from the after-school dance program danced, the choir sang, and the drum choir performed a haunting composition meant to mimic the sounds of trains arriving at one of the camps. Students read excerpts from survivor testimonies and recited poems. Six lit candles stood on a table at the side of the stage, representing the six million Jews who perished. It was a very beautiful and moving ceremony. I loved seeing some of my loudest, giggliest, and hyper students take part in the tekes with tremendous maturity and grace.
Many Israeli high school students take part in an international Holocaust education program called the "March of the Living." The program culminates with visits to concentration camp sites in Poland. Shortly before Yom HaShoah student and teacher participants from across the world gather with other members of the Jewish Diaspora as well as non-Jewish peace activists and supporters from many other countries including Poland, Japan, and the United States. Together, the group silently departs from the gates of Auschwitz and walks en masse to the remains of Birkenau. This eponymous march, in between the sites of the two largest Nazi concentration camps, is made every year to remember the death marches from Poland to Germany made by thousands of camp inmates during the final months of the war.
On the Streets all across Israel from the busiest sections of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, to the tiniest Moshav (village), all places of business close at sundown on the eve of Yom HaShoah. This is done as a sign of respect. Remaining open during the holiday is actually against the law. My friend, Jordana called me erev Yom HaShoah this year to report that as she went home right after sundown, she saw two police officers walking down King George with flashlights, peering into the windows of the cafes and kiosks that line the street.
On Television and On the Radio, no commercials are broadcast, and all of the programming is Holocaust-related. Last night, I tuned in to some FM radio station airing recorded testimonies from survivors (including some in English). When I turned on my television, Channel 3 (the national TV news channel) was showing a documentary film on Kristallnacht (the 1938 "Night of Broken Glass," one of the most infamous pograms in Germany, when hundreds of Jewish businesses,synagogues, schools, and homes were destroyed, 90 Jewish Germans were killed, and over twenty-thousand Jewish Germans were sent to concentration camps). The documentary showed indelible images of members of Hitler Youth spitting on Torah scrolls ripped from the arks of Shuls, and Gestapo officers forcing elderly Jews to get on their hands and knees in the street to scrub the cobblestones A flip through other channels showed even more disturbing images, including footage of Nazi medical experiments, and photographs of the corpses and skeletal survivors found by liberating Allied forces at the end of the war.
The Sirens: If you choose, you can avoid a lot of the ceremonies and rituals that mark Yom HaShoah in Israel.Ditch school, stay away from Jerusalem, keep the TV black, turn off your radio, hang out in the religious neighborhoods (because Israeli Haredim ignore the secular remembrance holiday, choosing instead to commemorate the Shoah victims during days of morning proscribed in the Tanakh (like Tish B'Av), avert your eyes from the Israeli flags and blue-and-white banners hanging from many homes' balconies, windows, and front doors. Stay away from all the shuttered cafes and banks and boutiques.
But even if you go to all that effort, you won't be able to avoid 10:00. At ten in the morning on the hag, sirens ring everywhere in Israel for two minutes. At the first blare, people everywhere stop everything they are doing to stand in silence for the two-minute duration of the noise. Observing this moment of silence in a country divided by politics, religiosity, and ethnicity is one of the only things that almost all Israelis do together. People walking in the streets stop in their tracks. Cars and taxis and buses and scooters halt on all the roads and highways, and the drivers and their passengers disembark. Many men, secular and religious, unfold kippot from their pockets and don them for the duration. At my beit sefer, just like hundreds of others across the country, lessons stop without a word, and students rise from their desks along with their teachers.
And then, after exactly two minutes, the sirens go silent. Everyone comes to life--pedestrians walk, car engines turn over, and passengers pile back on their buses. Classes and late breakfasts and cell phone conversations all resume. Ipods headphones are reinserted. But for two minutes, almost the entire country stands together, and remembers.
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