This is our first year celebrating Purim since we made aliyah and although I had high expectations having been warned by friends and family, I must say Israel really goes all out when it comes to celebrating Purim.
When I lived in Colombia, before kids, before marriage, Halloween was my favorite holiday. In college, any excuse to have a party and dress up as ridiculous as an adult possibly can, is a good excuse. Then I moved to Miami and met my husband, who came up with this whole explanation about how Halloween is a pagan holiday and as Jews we should not celebrate it. Crazy in love as I was at the time, it all sounded so reasonable coming from him that we made a pact and since that day I never again dressed up for Halloween. Purim in America wasn't the same since kids dressed up, but adults would not get the equivalent celebratory mood that we got on Halloween, so to say the least I felt like I had gotten bamboozled.
One of the reasons I was so excited about moving to Israel was that once again I would be able to dress up for a Holiday and not look out of place.
We've been celebrating Purim for two weeks now. A party for Olim at the Iriya, a Yuval ha Mebubal concert, a Miki concert, Yom Hafuch at school, kids dressing up as something else each day of the week... To top all the craziness off, we decided to go with friends to the crazy Adloyada/Parade in Holon. Holon holds each year what is known as Israel's biggest Purim parade. Being olim chadashim , how could we let the opportunity pass? I mean, these are things you only do on your first year in Israel. And after having been there, I can say it will probably be the last :) We set a time and place to meet with our friends at the main street where the parade traveled through. The plan was scheduled pretty well, until we got there and discovered we needed to park 15 blocks away. We walked, as hundreds of other costume wearers did towards Weizmann St. Once there, we needed to find our friends, except walking among the crowd was a feat. Thousands of people stood against the barrier that separated the parade form the crowd as my son Nathan sat on my shoulders in order to see the floats go by. What so many people say is nice about Israel is knowing that no matter where you go, everyone is Jewish. That's true, that is something I appreciate as well, but body odors are body odors no matter how Jewish you might be. Being just two blocks away from our friends, we never found each other and watched the parade (or should I say the top of the floats) from two different corners. This was our first and last, but I am happy we went. I can say we've done it.
Tomorrow the celebrations continue locally as Modiin's parade will take place along a street not far from our house, so no 15 block away parking, just costumes and a good time.
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