happy jews - נחמן מאומן

There is an orthodox jewish movement known as Breslove. They follow the teachings of rabi Nachman (נחמן), who said that above all we must be happy.

This is the result:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1JpugIrFKI&feature=related
"I was standing in line for some Shawarma in Israel when all of a sudden I look over and these guys are dancing to music in the middle of traffic!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laqhK1aknvE&NR=1
Yes, they really stand and dance in the middle of the traffic. And yes, it really is trance!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd5ykj6gbG0&feature=related

That's it, their purpose is to be happy and make others happy as well. Generally it works, but i'm pretty sure that every now and then there's an angry man pissed of because they stopped the traffic...

Notice also the always present van, all covered in "נחמן מאומן" (Nachman Meuman) stickers and fully equiped with the sound system! ;)
Once again, this is a religious movement, as weird as it may seem.

PS - for more info check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na_Nach_Nachma_Nachman_Meuman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breslov_(Hasidic_dynasty)

IAESTE

Btw, the organization that first allowed me to engage in this adventure of spending one month in a foreign country both working and enjoying deserves at least a citation, so here's the link to the international, Portuguese and Israeli sites of the IAESTE organization:

http://www.iaeste.org/

http://iaeste.ist.utl.pt/

http://www.admin.technion.ac.il/IAESTE/

And yes, I know those guys on that picture on the Dead Sea. I've also been there ;)

human rights

In a few days it's the Universal Declaration of Human Rights' 60th birthday, let's celebrate!

Yep, it was in December 10th, 1948.

Another very important thing happened in 1948: George Orwell wrote his book! Cool, huh...?

It's a great book. A bit of an anti-climax though...

On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the full text of which appears in the following pages. Following this historic act the Assembly called upon all Member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and "to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories." 

(http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html)

There's a nice animation with the Declaration written on a human silhouette here:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/12/departments/human-rights-interactive

I'm optimistic: someday this Declaration shall hold everywhere in the world :)

As for that piece of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, here's a little history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine

It's quite general, not specifically about Israel, but I enjoyed reading it a few days ago.

;)

pallywood

I was shown this video while I was in Israel by one of the boys from Technion.

I ask you to watch it and then give me your comment.

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=3330818905742409257

Jerusalem

Last week I took Thursday off work and went to the Dead Sea and Ein Gedi with Kyriaki.

The weekend was spent in the amazing wonderful city Jerusalem.
Not only there is the most amazing mixture of different cultures and the old city seems to be a market itself, it looks like every piece of stone there has a thousand year history to tell.
We're not talking about nice medieval things here, we're talking about the so called center of the universe for at least three different religions.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to take pictures with my own camera, but here's the link to Adrian's blog. He takes really good pictures :)
http://niekoniecznie.blogspot.com/

Hopefully, I'll be able to gather some photos later and post them here to show a little of this astonishing city that everyone must visit.

Trip to the North

Still in time for a little description of last weekend's trip: we went hiking.
Ok, done!

After having a hard time with the car rental company, all the three cars left Haifa heading the north of Israel.
For Friday, we went on a hike in the national park around the Montfort Castle. The castle itself is just a ruined ancient castle, but the hike is great.
About half the hike is at the side of a very small river that we can jump over. There's a huge natural wall where the very old layers of sediment can be clearly seen, like steps.
But, apart from the amazing panoramic view from the castle, the star of the trip is the tiny and long cave that leads into the start of the river.
For those who went inside, like I did, this cave makes it worth the effort: clear fresh water with little fish swimming around your legs. I actually tasted the water and it's perfect. Of course there are no pictures of the cave... But you can see the waxing gibbous moon next to the castle and some people smoking a "nargilla" there.

After the hike, some went to a small town where there is a bar/restaurant called Chocolata. They only have chocolate: chocolate with coffee, with ice cream, chocolate lasagna, chocolate soup, chocolate more-than-you-can-imagine.
The rest of the people, like me, went directly to Yehudia, to the camping to have showers and settle for the night. It was a nice night, with the essential vodka and "nargilla".

Few hours after going to sleep, a new hiking trip is waiting. Actually, almost everyone of the 15 people went for sight-seeing and only the remaining 5 went for the hike.
Absolutely amazing hike! Astonishing! Basically we went down the river in the Yehudia National Park. There was a place where we really swam with our backpacks because there was no other possible way!

The hike first attraction is the waterfall. We sat there to eat and rest a little.
After the waterfall, the path is through the river for a long time. At least in the summer, it's a very small river, that we can easily cross jumping. However, here and there are natural pools where people can stop to swim and rest on the sun.

The biggest of the pools has to be crossed... swimming. There's no way around. Everyone must swim or go back. And that's not all, to reach it, you must go down some scary vertical metal stairs. Incredibly nice!
Of course, once again I don't have pictures of the best part because the camera had to be inside the back-pack in a special plastic bag so it doesn't get wet. (Luis, you didn't read this, ok? The camera didn't suffer, not a single drop of whater, perfect.) Yes, we knew we'd have to swim, so we where prepared: some empty bottles of whater, water resistant plastic bags and you have a little water resistant boat.
After the pool, we sat once again to eat and rest and take some sun and bathe and dry clothes.

This was a real hike. You can't just walk straight, many of the times, you have to use your hands to hold on better, climb, jump... All on rocks, no dust to interfere and make it dangerous.

Main attractions done!
Now all we have is some more walking on the rocks side by side with a residual river, some more natural swimming pools and the return.
The return is something like climbing a few hundreds of meters to the top again at the 1pm sun. Hard climb, half an hour. Great great view. This was the last attraction of the place: the view. All of us, even burning in the sun, promised to get back. For me, I promised to get back if I come to Israel again. May happen.

postal

Amores,

estais porventura interessados em receber em vossas casas, de forma completamente gratuita, um postalinho da terra santa?
Entao tendes nada mais nada menos do que dois fabulosos dias para enviar-me um emailzinho com a vossa moradazinha. Enviai-ma e recebereis os vosso estimado postalinho nas vossas residencias ou em geral onde bem vos apetecer ;)

Beijos malta