Friday, October 3, 2014

The National Bicycle Day: Yom Kippur  in Israel




Going back to Israel after spending many years in the US, we were quite surprised to discover many new customs in a country which we had thought we knew really well. Recently I wrote  a post about the secular ritual of the Friday night dinner ("TGIF ISraeli Style"), and the new practice of observing  Yom Kippur is another one.
In the first year in Tel Aviv our daughters told us that they had to have bicycles for Yom Kippur, all their friends had them. That  is how we first found out that Yom Kippur has become the National Bicycle Day
Imagine a big city where on a regular day the streets are packed with noisy cars and buses, and then all of a sudden, as though by magic -- everything stops and there is silence.










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