La"G Ba'Omer - In which everything you learned about fire safety is tossed out the window

Ah, Israeli La'G Ba'Omer. How I missed you. In Canada, we have things like forest fire warnings, and, you know, a general concern for the safety of the public, preventing us from properly celebrating this holiday.

Not so in Israel! La"G Ba'Omer, or the 33rd day of counting the Omer (sheaves of wheat. Part of the Pentecost. Read your bible, I'm not a religious studies student) is a holiday in which 3 year old boys get their first haircut, people get married, religious men dance near graves, and, for mysterious and vaguely pagan reasons, Israelis douse piles of wood and other flammable materials with kerosene and set it ablaze.

And by "Israelis", I mean "children", because here in Israel, we have either a shockingly lackadaisical approach to fire safety, or we figure that if we're going to give them guns at 18, they may as well get used to handling hazardous materials quite young.

Anyways, I kicked off La"G Ba'Omer at the school where I'm interning: after a few hours of a regular school day, the kids partied outside with a gasoline-fuelled bonfire (naturally, 12 centimetres from the playground's fence, or .5 centimetres from the neighbouring trees and bushes), arts and crafts, a barbeque, roasted potatoes and marshmallows, and a Druze pita stove. Tons of flammable fun!

To sum, a reflection on the relationship between Israelis and their car horns. 18 is an important number for Jews, and also, I couldn't think of 33 which would have made more sense, given the holiday, but whatever - you try to come up with 33 reasons.

When it is appropriate to honk your horn in Israel - by Jessica Goldberg
1. When someone makes a stupid and likely illegal move that almost killed you, but didn't - anger
2. When you make a stupid and likely illegal move that almost killed someone, but didn't - celebration
3. When a pedestrian crosses illegally against their light into your path - anger
4. When you're trying to race the yellow light, miss, sail through on the red, and there's a pedestrian in your path, crossing legally on their light - indignation
5. When you can't understand why no one wants to get to where they're supposed to go - annoyance
6. (Pre-emptive note: In Israel, the lights go Green-Yellow-Red-Yellow-Green. That is, there is a preparatory yellow light before the green light) When the light is yellow and about to turn green and you're the second or third car in line and want to make sure the drivers ahead of you know that they should get ready - helpful
7. When you are the first car in line and you hear the pre-emptive beeping behind you, even though you don't have a green light yet, and you want to acknowledge them - thankful, or annoyed, depending on the situation
8. When you are stuck in gridlock, caused by some idiot who entered the intersection even though he couldn't make it through - anger
9. When you are the idiot who caused the gridlock by entering the intersection even though there were two cars ahead of you blocking the intersection with no hope of you getting through the light - irresponsible
10. When you are stuck in a traffic jam caused by sappers blocking the street to blow up a suspicious object, or a traffic accident, or people staring at the traffic accident (the latter two not being blown up by sappers) - annoyance
11. When you don't really mind that you're stuck in a traffic jam, cause there's something good on the radio, or you enjoy the company of your passengers, but everyone else is honking, and you like to fit in - peer pressure
12. When you see your buddy in the street, or in the car next to you, and want to say hi - nostalgic
13. When the jackass in front of you is stopping traffic to chat with his buddy in the next car over - antisocial
14. When every so often, you hear a honk in front of you or behind you, or maybe on the next street over, and you want to join in, because you miss the times when you used to have a garage band with your friends, and you like the syncopated rhythm of the horns - musical
15. Because you're Israeli, and you just got out of the army, and you think you're still driving the tanks, which don't have horns, but do have cannons, and so this is sort of the same thing, but friendlier for the environment - nationalistic
16. When you're a taxi driver and you're passing a busstop and you're trying to pick up passengers who only think they want to spend two bucks on a bus when they could spend ten in your cab - capitalist
17. When you're the busdriver unable to pick up passengers at the busstop cause there's some jerk cabdriver in the buslane - bigger than the taxi. Something to consider.
18. Because you paid good money for safety features like the horn in your car, and you want to make sure it's still working - resourceful