If you love the smell of burning wood, the sight of flames leaping into the sky and the art of building the perfect bonfire, then this week, featuring the pyromaniacal holiday of Lag Ba’Omer is the week for you. And while Jerusalem will celebrate the mystical holiday in smoky style, all around town, the city wil also prove that there’s no reason to limit the good times to just one day. Here are our best picks of all the fun goings-on this week.
- Jerusalem may seem a world away from the blues of the Greek isles, but in actuality, Athens is just a skip hop and jump across the Mediterranean and the two cultures share a history going as far back as Homer himself. So a concert at the Jerusalem Theater tonight celebrating Greek culture is simply the next logical step.
- Leviticus may have the reputation as the most boring of the five books of the Torah, but how can any document with curses, sacrifices and lepers be considered ho-hum? Beit Avi Chai tackles the oft-overlooked parts of the weekly portion on Friday.
- Saturday night is the beginning of Lag Ba’Omer. While thousands will flock to Meron in the north, many more will stay in Jerusalem, dancing around bonfires in honor of a mystical rabbi (Shimon bar-Yochai) who died on this date some 2,000 years ago. If you need to step inside to escape the environmentalist nightmare happening outside, try out Michael Greilsammer at the Yellow Submarine.
- Mystical is one thing, but phantasmagoric is a whole different ballgame. And what better way to describe the absolutely freaky adventures of Alice in Wonderland, being staged by the Jerusalem Theater Sunday.
- On Monday, the second International Writers Festival kicks off. The event features authors from all over the world as well as many locals, talking about their trade. It’s a chance to meet the real people of the book.
- Jazz up your Tuesday with a free Ofri Yavzuri Trio show at the Yellow Submarine.
- Calling Jerusalem picturesque is like saying Michael Jordan was a basketball player. Perhaps no city in the world encompasses such natural and diverse beauty and it’s no wonder that artists flock to the city to capture its many faces on canvas. A convocation of such artists, the 11th annual Landscape Painting Marathon, will take place this week.
And as always there’s plenty more to see at our full events page.
