Purim & Elections – Let the Zaniness Begin
Purim & Elections – Let the Zaniness Begin
You can feel the buildup to Purim as walk you through the streets here. The stores are displaying costumes and sweets and for weeks kids have been shooting off firecrackers and lighting roman candles at night. Everywhere you go you see the preparations and feel the excitement as kids prepare their costumes for this annual holiday. Our friend Ruth sums it up simply: “Purim is a big deal here.” It really is. Coming from Canada, I can only compare it to Halloween, that fun holiday that other kids got to celebrate while we stayed home handing out candy to the neighborhood kids that came to trick or treat. Here, the whole country is celebrating a holiday that does not require fasting, encourages having fun and does not commemorate a tragedy in Jewish history. We forget sometimes that we are actually in a Jewish country where one of the leading news items is kids in costumes or the whole class in one school that dressed up as police officers (they were adorable) and the weather woman wishing us a “Happy Purim.”
Today the kids got dressed up in their costumes and had a celebration at Gan. They brought in a clown to perform for the kids. Speaking of clowns… the TV commercials started showing last week for the upcoming elections. They are something else. In a country where the world subtle is not known, the commercials are a real slugfest for votes. Some commercials extoll the virtues of their leaders with sappy “call home” type pieces that nobody believes and the next moment attack the leader of the other party. There are 31 parties running for the Knesset. The method of voting here is very low-tech. They don’t use electronic ballots or the old “X” on a piece of paper, you are given an envelope and you put a piece of paper inside that has a letter or combination of letters representing a party. Sometimes the letters will stand for a word or idea. The Labor Party uses the letters EMET which means “truth” while Kadimah will use Ken, which means “yes”. I don’t know if it is an accident or not but the “Party for the Struggle with the Banks” has chosen the letters “PUTZ” which is a Yiddish word and not complementary to say the least. Besides the Bank party there are a few other partys that have a single issue agenda. I wonder how “Strength to the Poor” and the “Green Leaf Party” (marijuahna) will deal with serious foreign affairs and security issues.
The commercials are part of the Israeli race to the Knesset and the TV news reports on the various messages shown in the ads as well as all the mistakes that were made. The best ad we have seen so far is for Meretz. The commercial showed different people at the Kotel each whispering their wishes. Very effective and did not attack anyone else.
One party had to pull an ad because they were attacking Charedim and yesterday we heard that Shas had to pull one of their ads that promised people who vote for their party would receive a place in the world to come. While waiting at the bus stop last week we saw a poster asking people to protest and instead of putting a ballot in the envelope the organizations request that people put a piece of toilet paper in instead.
P.S. Here are the answers to our Purim photo puzzler:
1) Dome of the Rock is gone; 2) Tree has moved; 3) Orange bags have multiplied; 4) Band on David Zvi’s sweatshirt is a different colour; 5) Stevy has a twin; 6) Strap on camera bag is larger; 7) Alison’s watch is missing; 
Zoe’s sleeve is longer; 9) Maayan’s sock is taller; 10) Why have just one Mishpacha Epstein, when you can have two? Chag Sameach!
P.P.S. If you haven’t receive our Purim photo, we apologize. E-mail us, and we’ll send you one.
Uncategorized | Stephen | 
March 1, 2006 2:15 am