update: I know some of the pics aren't opening up to a larger size, but I'm not sure why. Check them out on my flickr page. link is on the right side. also added a video of some jews chanting :)
So, I went to Tsfat last night. Tsfat is one of the 4 holy cities of Judaism, the other three being Hebron, Jerusalem and.... ok, right. So, Tsfat is one of the 4 holy cities of Judaism. During the high holidays, and specifically on Yom Kippur, thousands of Israeli Jews flock to one of two places- Tzfat and Jerusalem. That's the story. So, the day before Yom Kippur is the ritual of Kaporot. The "traditional" Kaporot ritual goes like this: Orthodox rabbi takes a chicken, grabs it by the neck, and swings it around in a circle above the head of himself and another Jew five times. The bird is symbolically absorbing all the sins of the person who's head it is being killed above. Nowadays, they do it like this: they hold the chicken above the head of another person 5 seperate times, slice open its neck, let it bleed out into a bucket, and feed it to the poor. All the chicken must be eaten, as this makes it a mitzvah (good deed). In the interests of not being stoned by orthodox Jews, I didn't take any pictures. However, I'm sure that a youtube.com search would yield results.
Tsfat is a really nice looking place, and despite the fact our tour was at 11pm, I did manage to get some pictures of the city. It's an incredibly old place, so the parts of the city I saw were quite medieval looking, which at night made it even more interesting- albeit not easy to photograph well. Below are some pictures, and they're mainly of streets and shuls, but I put up some of the better ones so you can see some of it for yourself . I've made plans to scooter back there with my roommate so we can get daytime pictures- it was that sababa (cool). Anyway... pics!!
The guy in the white, center, looks like Jesus to me... link
just looking at rooftops. from this point, during the day, you can see the Med. link
walking past some shuls in the Old Jewish Quarter. link
Ruins of a building on the outskirts of the city. link
That's all for now, folks. I'm going to make some Turkish coffee and head into town on foot and take some videos. There's an eerie silence here right now, since literally no one in the country except police, fire, and EMS vehicles are on the roads. NO ONE DRIVES on Yom Kippur, if you do, the people will throw stones at your car and cause injuries to you and damage to your vehicle. The streets are filled with bicycles and pedestrians instead, so it should make for some interesting footage :)
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