Liza's Big Adventure: Day of Omar

So on the day before we left for Turkey, we went into West Jerusalem for a Jewish celebration called the Day of Omar. We asked our Israel teacher about it and it is a celebration that commemorates a day of the Bar Kochba Revolt that went well. Or something like that. But it was more of a cultural celebration than a religious one. Basically, what happens is the little boys find twigs and sticks and branches and anything else flammable and they build these ginormous piles of sticks. They do this for weeks. Then, on the night of the day of Omar, they hurry like crazy and you see little boys running everywhere, pulling off big branches, blocking traffic to pull big trees across the road, and make the bonfires as huge as they can. And then they light them all and by this time all of the community has gathered around and there seemed to be one older guy in charge of all the little minions. Then they light them up and it is amazing. There are huge fires all across the cities in the little public spaces in the Jewish parts. All of the community sings and dances (well actually just the men sing and dance) and it is a huge party. We kind of just wandered around West J until we found these Jewish guys from New York and they took us to the mother load of the bonfires. We talked to them while they walked to show us where to go and it was so interesting to learn more about why they were coming to visit and how they feel about Jerusalem. We stayed out till midnight, but it was sooo worth it because it was one of the most culturally enriching experiences I have ever had.

Me and one of the smaller bonfires.