Another hot day
and another sign of summer,
the watermelon stands are popping up
on the Jerusalem, Israel streets.
שבת שלום
middle east current events
June in Jerusalem
Fires are raging.
The sky is hazy.
The flags from Yom Yerushalayim,
Jerusalem Day, are slowly being put away.
The signs announcing dozens of options
for learning on Shavuot will soon be covered over.
The tens of thousands of visitors
who walked the holiday streets have gone home.
It is June,
and summer has arrived in Jerusalem, Israel.
The grasses are tinder, ready
to catch on fire and burn out of control.
But then,
there are desert flowers popping with color,
and the Lions’ Fountain looks tempting and cool.
In Jerusalem of contrasts,
the old Hansen House gates were opened to
Innovation of Amazon this week.
The animals from Design Week were still in its gardens.
I marvel at the changes at every new
technology event hosted at Hansen.
Changes are evident at First Station as well,
with a new sign Life is Beautiful greets on one wall.
While inside the area is being prepared
again to host the annual Hebrew Book Week.
The holidays are over.
It’s June graduation and conference time.
For the first time ever,
the Herzliya Conference opened at Beit Hanasi,
the Israeli President’s House, with international dignitaries
and Israeli political leaders,
and of course plenty of speeches.
I wanted to know
what MK Naftali Bennett and MK Aryeh Deri
were talking about that was so amusing.
Besides speeches and conferences,
there are too many musical programs to list.
And of course,
June is also wedding time.
Time to get ready to go…
Mazel tov
Best of Jerusalem Light Festival
The Festival of Light in Jerusalem 2016
was one of the best photo ops of the year.
However, the biggest problem as always,
how to get down to a reasonable number of photos to share.
For the eighth year, the Old City streets
were illuminated with lights,
with works of international artists
projected on to buildings, like
these two scenes on the Christian Information Center.
The week long, nighttime festival
began on May 25th, Lag B’Omer.
A sparkling wine reception near the Tower of David
treated invited guests
to food and roasted marshmallows.
As night fell,
Italian Colored Origami covered
the Armenian Patriarchate Street,
where a bit further visitors encountered,
the Illuminated Orchestra,
live musicians were lit up.
In the Old City,
girls were still collecting firewood for their
Lag B’Omer medurot, bonfires.
While in the Cardo, the Hebrew names of the ten sefirot,
the kabbalistic term for God’s emanations,
were linked in a pattern
called the Tree of Life.
In the covered Cardo,
viewers were attracted by the French Crystallized,
shaped as a bismuth crystal.
As with all the Jerusalem Old City festivals,
I love to follow the colored lights
out of the Jewish Quarter
and along those streets I usually avoid.
The streets of the Arab markets even shuttered at night
are fascinating and photo worthy.
For the first time at a night festival,
I did not get lost in Muristan Square,
and end up wandering through the Muslim Quarter.
Instead, I found the popular
Lamps of Muristan,
Spin,
and French Green Marvelous Opulence.
Green plastic shopping bags folded to look like veggies,
was a stop-and-think-about-it piece of art.
Tens of thousands of people attended the nights of the festival.
On the Olive Tree Lawn,
what looked like a giant Lag B’Omer medura, bonfire,
was the Large Fire Tornado.
From the Netherlands,
this huge fire was fueled by 36 industrial fans.
Thousands of videos were taken of the
main attraction at the Jaffa Gate, festival starting point,
color and movement of Water Fountains.
Designed by Latvian artists, every ten minutes
the spectacular show repeated itself.
At the Damascus Gate,
Globoscope Stories of Damascus Gate
required a video again.
But there were new sights this year.
At the historic Central Post Office building, Do’Ar Na,
was lit to look like the iconic old British post boxes.
The interactive music of spectators across Jaffa Road
banging on old mail boxes that made this presentation unique.
Oh, and that Eiffel Tower mentioned last week
near the Generali Building
was for the Jerusalem Light Festival,
not the Prime Minister of France.
Not everyone reached the end of the pink route,
but the projection Love Jerusalem
on the new FOZ building was a winner.
For me, doing most of the five routes
with a friend and not alone was new and great fun.
30 stops on 5 colored routes,
going back more than once,
these were some of my favorites.
Every year is different
and each year I seem to need more videos.
Check out:
Water Fountains, with Mayor Nir Barkat speaking at opening event.
Urban Poetry at Batei HaMachseh Square
and my favorite video this year,
and Love Jerusalem.