Festival of Lights

I was terribly confused yesterday ... thinking that it was already Friday. So I went to the wrong places, waiting for wrong meetings .... Today I had work in the morning and class in the afternoon and then I felt very very sick. High fever, dizziness, painful joints. Could it be the flu? Some of our workers have the flu and I might have caught it from them. It's going to be a lousy weekend.

Carpet of lights below the City Walls

Last evening I went to see the Festival of Lights. It was very very crowded ... definitely much more than the last 2 years during the stabbing attacks. And there are certainly much more participants from around the world exhibiting their artistic works of light. And it was much better than previous years. And the crowds were really really huge. But it was very noticeable that the major part of the light show and route that runs through the Christian, Armenian and Jewish Quarters were predominantly visited by local Israelis. Exhibits lower down at Damascus Gate and the Musim Quarter had hardly any Israelis but a handful of tourists and arabs. The racial and religious divide is still very real and palpable even though nothing is said openly. Very sad.

Damascus Gate lightshow

An example in today's newspaper: an arab living in the mountainous Samaria region was granted permission to enter Israel during Ramadan. He decided to go to the beach as he has not seen the sea in 20 years. Not having swimming trunks, he wore only his underwear at the beach ... something which many Israelis also do. But the police came to arrest him and fined him US$200 for not wearing swimming trunks. The poor guy has no money because that will cost him 2 months salary ... but if he doesn't pay, he will no longer have a permit to enter Israel, never get to see the sea again for the rest of his life.  http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.798538

Meantime the jewish internal struggle is gathering momentum .... sadly. Emboldened by the support of the PM, the ultra-orthodox jews have begun declaring all other forms and expressions of Judaism as non-jewish, even declaring that conversions conducted by non-ultra orthodox rabbis are invalid. Wow that would mean thousands of jewish converts being wiped out of the records.  http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/all-stories/.premium-1.798647