Lag B'Omer (Is Fucking Weird)

Our marshmallow toasting looked nothing like this

The cultural differences between Israel and Australia often don't make much of an impact these days - I barely notice them.  I don't flinch when somebody hard core hip and shoulders me, and then fails to apologise.  I barely register when I see rats crawling on the food stalls in the back alleys of the city market.  I don't bat an eye when a person rolls their car into me at the lights (or me into them is more the point), and I no longer get excited when someone lights a joint next to me in a restaurant.

But then.... the 'Super Fun" children's festival of Lag B'Omer rolls around, and it just appears nuts to me.  I also imagine that it must appear crazy to anybody who wants their kids to avoid getting third degree bonfire burns to their torsos - but who would know? For a start, nobody seems to get what it's about - and those who claim they do cannot explain it if their life depends on it.  I just come away from my cultural appreciation questions feeling more and more confused.  There is something about the number 33, a man in a cave for 12 years -then finally coming out and having to go back in for another year, and most likely is that it celebrates the beginning of Kabbalah - the mystical side of Judaism.  Who knows?  I sure don't, that much is for certain - and I've discussed it with quite a number of people in order to become enlightened (that could be what the flames represent now I think of it).

What I do know is that it translates today to a 'joyous celebration for children' and involves bonfires and bow and arrows.

Add some petrol Pops

This year my daughter's school organised a bonfire party.  "Come along" said my friend "It will be amazing".  Amazingly shit more like it.  Another friend enthusiastically told me it was to be held 'in nature' and the kids would go wild in the forest.  The only part of that sentence that turned out to be true was the 'go wild' bit.  I wasn't deceived though.  Every time somebody tries to sell me an Israeli nature experience I know I'm in for a crushing disappointment.  A rushing river is really a dry stagnant stream, a beautiful beach is actually an average one crowded with people with ciggie butts in the sand and off-looking foam floating in the water.  And in this case, the natural field turned out to be a dirt square surrounded by roads and suburbia, and the forest was about 5 spindly trees.

What was there in plentiful numbers were psychotic kids - about 300 of them, about 20 dangerous bonfires, and thick acrid smoke choking everybody.  There were tables of crappy food and one table entirely devoted to constructing marshmallow sticks.  All kids were eating only marshmallows.  It was true chaos.

Thats the way kids, get those flames higher

For a start, the number of fires in close proximity to a bunch of little kids seemed mental to me.  People had started them directly under trees and were loading them up to maximum as the wind whipped 8 foot flames sideways.  And still they kept loading stuff onto them.  And this was not some lovely pine logs from the woodpile.  This was junk.  One guy built a pyramid of broken wooden furniture that had been treated with some hideous chemical paint - poured a can of petrol on it and lit it.  Kids all around watching.  True madness.  The smoke billowing off it was thick black with a dark green tint to it, and it STUNK.  So so badly.  It was insanity.  Meanwhile there's kids everywhere feasting off the skewers of marshmallows and running around with the pointy ends almost taking other kid's eyes out.  Then they were all trying to stick them into the chemical flames and the big gobs of sugar were dripping all over the toxic logs while the fire licked at their clothes.  And nobody appeared to give a shit.  Parents hardly glanced around to see if their 3 year old were being burnt to a crisp or playing with the discarded petrol cans, or whatever.

Load it up boys

I left just as a couple of the fathers from our own class loaded a white painted door on the top of our already giant bonfire and more smoke plumed asunder.  It was all over for me then.  Apparently my friend got home from a bonfire session with her little boy who has asthma issues, and he vomited all over the place.  I think most of the city felt high after breathing in the haze that hung in the air for the following 24 hours.  But we got off lightly, some enthusiastic bonfire builders in Jerusalem lit a bonfire that got out of control resulting in housing evacuations.  Apparently hundreds of people were treated for injuries.  There is not a chance this kind of shit would happen in Australia - no chance.  Can you imagine?  I did notice that later on in the night it seemed to be a festival mainly for teenage boys who filled the streets by 11pm wheeling trolleys of wood to their next destination.  That shiz would not fly in Australia.  An opportunity like that just begs for teenage delinquency.

Jerusalem on fire

At least our class banned the bow and arrows this year - I simply can't fathom the chaos that would have resulted if 200 arrows were also being fired all over the place.  I remember my first year here, I turned up to the kindergarten class at pick-up time on Lag B'Omer, and 20 five year olds simultaneously shot me in the face with 20 identical plastic arrows.  I guess one factor that makes this celebration less lethal than it would be in Australia, is the lack of alcohol that is involved here.  All Australian teens would combine a night of fires and arrows with a shitload of booze - and let's face it, that shit would get messy.  

Add a few bottles of JD to the trolley lads

That is another massive cultural distance between Israel and Australia.  No drunks anywhere.  None walking the street, none in the bars and pubs.  People are definitely drinking, don't get me wrong - they all love a drink......but almost nobody drinks to excess.  It just doesn't happen.  This means that you can walk home through the streets and feel totally safe.  You don't have to keep your eyes down when you approach a group of young dudes, or resort to crossing the road.  Its a totally different vibe.  I accidentally got a bit pissy the other night. Not staggering drunk, just a kind of happy and loud sort of  drunk.  I really stood out - like wearing hot pink on a winters day in Melbourne.  My levels of intoxication were commented on by people at the table next to us.  And this wasn't in a fancy restaurant - this was a late night kebab joint in one of the most pumping areas in Tel Aviv on the biggest party night of the week.  You go into a kebab shop in Melbourne on a Saturday night and you will stand out if you're not spastic.  You can slop twenty tones of tahini all over your shirt and nobody would flinch.  You could even vomit out the front of the shop and nobody will care.

Although this isn't me I totally wish it was

Seriously, all I did was laugh loudly (although my friend did say I flashed some older Arab women patrons on the way out, but I'm hoping he was joking as I can't recall actually leaving).....but my loud laughter copped a "What the fuck is wrong with her" look from some dudes inside, directed towards my husband.  I gotta go home - mix with my own boganic alcoholic kind.....I miss them so much, even if they are a bit scary at 1am on a Saturday night in Chapel Street.