Yom Kippur

"Yom Kippur - also known in English as the Day of Atonement, is the most solemn and important of the jewish holidays.

Its central themes are atonement and repentance. Jewish people all around the world traditionally observe this holy day with a 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue services."

For me, it one of the only time a year I'm going to the Synagogue.

General observances

"Leviticus 23:27 decrees that Yom Kippur is a strict day of rest and of fasting.

Five additional prohibitions are traditionally observed, as detailed in the Jewish oral tradition:

Eating and drinking
Wearing leather shoes
Bathing/washing
Anointing oneself with perfumes or lotions
Sexual relations"

It is a special day, I am keeping all of the above, I said before that I am a beliving man, and I also keep some Traditions all of the time, but Yom Kippur is the only day that I stop doing anything.

It is a day That I would not eat, drink, see TV, use the computer, hear music or do anything like that, I usually spend most of the time reading a book or sleeping :)

The main Idea of this holiday is to ask for forgiveness from God and from anyone that we feel we missbehaved to during the past year.

Forigen people who will see Israel on this day will be amazed to see that this country is actually Stops for one day, no one is driving, no one is working (unless it is an emergency), even tough a lot of people don't fest, they are still respecting that day and not using cars or hearing loud music for example.

And that is a good place to ask for forgiveness from anyone that I hurt last year, I promise it was unintentionally.

I am sorry and I will try to be better next Year :)



(Thanks to Wikipedia)

Time for vacation

Five months passed since I came back home from My trip to south America.
One month before I go to the University.
I think Its the perfect time for Vacation.

So where should I go ?
I assume that In the US when someone wants to take a vacation he may take a flight (Or a long Road Trip) to Hawaii, Maimi, Mexico or anywhere.

Israelis, however, don't need to take a flight, Israel is really small, It's so small that it will take you less then six hours by car to go from the Northern point to the Southern point, And less then an hour from the west to the east.

That blue spot in the middle of the US map above is the actual size of Israel comparing to the US.

Anyway, the most famous place in Israel for Vacation is the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth ( About 421 Meters below sea level),there you can find a beautiful sea, full of Salt, so when you go into the water you will simply float :)



Around the area of the Dead Sea, there are many Hotels and other attractions. For tourists from all over the world its the perfect place to come and relax.
The soil around the Dead Sea has Health advantages, and many people comes for treatments , you can find a lot of information about it on web.

Eilat is the most southern city in Israel, Its always sunny there, the beach is beautiful and you can do any activity that you can dream of.
The Shoppers Will LOVE this place because there is no TAX on shopping in Eilat :)

If you are in the mood for green and breathtaking landscape go up north, Beautiful places, much cooler climate, and of course the "Sea of Galilee", which unfortunately getting smaller every year due to lake of rain and other sources of water to fill it, so Hurry up.

In addition you have many beautiful places for tourist all around the country, Jerusalem and its holy places, and the city of Tel Aviv which called the "city that never stops", with hundreds of Bars, Restaurants, Parties and many more fun places to go.

The best thing is that you can visit all those places together, its about 3 hours trip by car from one location to another, so you can "mix" it all together.

Now you just need to chose where to start from :)

Yours,

Or.

Of course I know Jerry Seinfeld

Note: If this is your first time here please take a minute to read the first post (Click on Older Posts).

Many people think that because Israel is a Jewish country it's a also necessarily religious country.

But this is simply not true.

According to a survey from march 2008, 51% of the Jewish population in Israel defines itself as secular, 30% call themselves traditionalist and the rest are religious.

It means that Israel is far from being a religious country.
Modern life seems to create new reality here, in fact more and more Israelis who are Jewish don't practice Jewish customs at all.
For example, During my trip I found out that most of the people were surprised to discover that I watch the same TV shows and listen to the same music as they do.

TV in Israel ? isn't it in the middle east ??

It took about 5 minutes to understand that I know Jerry, George and Kramer as well as they do.

The culture in Israel became completely western. On our cable TV you can find many TV programs from the US, some are new and some are old: Seinfeld, Friends, The Office, ER, Lost, etc.


We even get many International Channels like CNN, MTV, HBO and much more.

Unlike many other countries that use dubbing for foreign TV programs, the programs here are broadcast in English with Hebrew Subtitles.

Some of the shows are broadcast here few hours after it broadcasts in the US like American Idol. We also have Israeli Shows, some are based on International shows like "Kochav Nolad", the Israeli version of American Idol.


But many shows are Israeli Original, they are filmed in Israel, the actors and actresses are Israeli, and of course the story was written by Israelis.
Some of the shows are very successful and Foreign Networks buys the rights for the scripts and make their own local version.

On the Radio it is very similar, I would say that about half of the songs on the radio are in English.
We enjoy U2, Rhianna, Madonna and more all day long.

Lets do something interesting, this is a link to Galgalatz - Israeli Radio Station, press the link and you can listen to an Israeli station- Live. Now, you will find out that some of the songs are the same as the songs on your local Radio station.

Most of the day (Israel time) there will be music there and during the night, there will be more talking.
The talking of course will be in Hebrew.

One of the interesting things that you will discover is that each hour, "on the hour" (ex. 11:00, 16:00, 17:00 etc.) you will hear a 5 minutes news update (On most of the Stations).
Well, it is Israel after all.

So enjoy the music :)

Yours,

Or.

First post on my Blog

OK, first of all welcome to my Blog.

The main idea behind this Blog is to tell you guys about life in Israel.

My name is Or (In Hebrew the meaning is Light) and I'm going to be a student in Bar-Ilan University in a little bit more then a month from now.

I was born and raised in Ramat-Gan, Israel, which is just 5 minutes from Tel-Aviv.
I went to school Here, served in the IDF for three and a half years, I love this country for the good things and the bad ones.

Last year I traveled the world for about a year, I've been to the US and south America, it was a great time.
I saw beautiful places and met a lot of great people, but the thing that surprised me the most was that many people don't know anything about Israel or even worse, they "know" Wrong things about this country, I remember one day talking to my friends from Michigan and they asked me whether we have electricity or cars in Israel and if there is always fights around here ?? and then I realized, even If I think that because people hear about Israel every day on the news they know this country, they still don't know almost anything about this place.

So I am going to tell you about life around here from my point of view, from my stories, pictures and videos, so you can see the difference between things that happens here and things that happens in your country.


Why "The Simple Life - Israel" ?

Well, You know that Paris Hilton show right ? so there is not any connection but I liked the name and the idea so I took it.


So stay tuned.

Yours,

OR.