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.

Globoscope Damascus Gate

Urban Poetry at Batei HaMachseh Square

and my favorite video this year,

 and Love Jerusalem.