No Cars Go

I decided to give Yom Kippur a miss. I want to participate in Israeli culture as much as possible, but spending my day off in a packed-out synagogue listening to prayers in Hebrew, whilst abstaining from food and water in 30 degree heat sounded like kind of a bummer.


The thing about Yom Kippur in Israel is that it's a national holiday. Not everyone fasts, but all businesses are closed, all media shuts down, and most significantly, no cars, buses or trains are permitted to run. This means that for one day a year, Israeli cities are silent and traffic-free. Secular Jewish children take advantage of this by tearing around the open streets on their bikes, which gives Israeli cities on Yom Kippur a kind of festive/post-apocalyptic feel.


I hiked into Netanya and visited the beach - a 10 km round trip, if I hadn't got spectacularly lost. (I think most of my stories about Israel are going to involve getting lost. In addition to my natural aptitude for losing my way, I'm up against an almost Sherwoodian labyrinth of alliteratively named Hebrew streets.) So I ended up cutting through fields and orchards, hiking down the middle of a deserted highway, wandering along streets largely populated by children on bikes, strolling down the beach for a while, then doing the whole thing in reverse.


I also took a dip in the Mediterranean. It's rough, very salty, and swimming pool warm. It was a good day.