Purim Street Party – Best Event in Town

The annual Purim street party was held last night in the southern neighborhood of Floretin, Tel Aviv. And when I write “in the neighborhood”, I mean all of it. The party didn’t concentrate in one junction, one avenue or one square, but in lots of streets.

Florentin Party

There were thousands of people with costumes, as expected from the Purim tradition. I’ve noted the “Super Geek” costume (a girl with a red cape and a huge calculator), a guy with his Facebook profile attached to his clothes, and lots of angels and satans.

Facebook Costume

They were hanging out in many areas. Some places had live music: rock, punk, jazz, funk. Others just placed a sound system with a good vibration to rock the nation. Beer was sold here and there, but not something commercially organized.

Talking about organization, the unorganized, half-spontaneous nature of the street party was great. One thing was missing: the streets weren’t closed. At the beginning of the evening, more than a few cars tried to pass through, and it was somewhat annoying. Later on, the streets were effectively closed by the masses.

And what was my costume? I was a German tourist:

Yohay

My costume wasn’t too hard to make…

Here are more pictures from the Florentin Street Party.

At Least They Are Doing Something

The Israeli raid on Gaza over the last weekend was a first serious action in a long long time. It came after attacks on Sderot became more intensive, and after some rockets hit the larger coastal town of Ashkelon.

Whilst I’m in favor of a peaceful solution, especially when Gilad Shalit is still in Hamas’ hands, such an operation shows that our government is finally ready to do something about the Qassam rockets.

Qassam rockets are being fired on Sderot since April 2001. No serious action has been taken to stop them. A solution can be either through talks with Hamas that is in control of the Gaza strip, or through a military action.

Up to now, it seemed that our government just didn’t give a damn about those people living in the south. Their voice isn’t heard in Tel Aviv or in Jerusalem. Protests have done little to move Israelis that live outside of the rockets’ zone.
The media usually doesn’t find reports about Qassams to be news.

It seemed convenient to live with a regular share of rockets and casualties, and to use this issue as an excuse for not making progress in any peace process.

The rockets on Ashkelon, the student that was killed in Sapir college and the rising frequency of rockets probably moved the media and the government. The action wasn’t the promised “Big Operation”, and I hope that such a big operation won’t go through.

I hope that the recent raid will trigger some talks about a cessation of hostilities as some Israeli politicians have suggested. These suggestions are now spoken by the politicians and also voiced by the media.
These voices wouldn’t be echoed without the raid on the weekend.

Will we see an end to this war of attrition?

Rainbow in Tel Aviv II

Winter is depressing. I work too much and I sleep too much. No mood for blogging, only taking pictures.
So without further due, here’s today’s rainbow over Tel Aviv, taken in a moment that my head wasn’t in front of the computer…

Rainbow in Tel Aviv

And this is a picture of the rainbow without zooming in, but with lots of clicks on “Auto Correct” on my simple editing software:

Rainbow in Tel Aviv

The pictures were taken from the eastern wing of Shalom Tower.
The previous rainbow.

Another Brochure Post for Tel Aviv

After over a week of very cold weather the sun healed. While enjoying the sun, I also did some light-weight political activity, enjoyed live music on the streets and filled my belly. I love the city a lot, and here’s a post that mixes everything. Yup, you’ve heard it before…

Friday in Tel Aviv

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