Purim is the holiday that celebrates the story told in the book of Esther. We celebrate surviving an attempted annihilation of the entire Jewish people in one swipe, back in the days of king Ashuerus (aka Ahashverosh). Religious people go to the synagogue or to parties to hear the book of Esther chanted, and then everyone gets rip-roaringly drunk and has a marvelous time.

Yes, I said everyone gets drunk. This is a festival of drunken revelry and silliness. It's part Halloween (costumes), part April Fools (fake, silly news in the newspapers), and part Bacchanalia (that would be the drunken revelry). About 2000 years ago, when they were writing down the Talmud, the rabbis said that you should get so drunk on Purim that you don't know the difference between Haman (the bad guy) and Mordechai (the good guy).

For non-religious people, the holiday is pretty much the same, except without the reading the book part. Replace chanting with loud music at a Tel Avivi night club and stir.

This video was taken last Friday, a few days before Purim, but you can see toward the end of the video that someone was already wearing their devil horns.

This video was taken on Monday, Purim night, in a neighborhood in Tel Aviv where there are a lot of bars and dance clubs.

Today is national election day in Israel, and the weather for the day seems like something right out of a Hollywood movie. There must be some sort of meaning in this. If it were a book, these rain drops would be foreshadowing something. Before you jump to conclusions and assume that the foreshadowing would be something bad, though, remember that this is the rainy season in Israel, and Torah and Jewish tradition holds that rain during the right season is a huge blessing. So, Hollywood scary or Middle East folklore miracle? It's all a matter of personal interpretation.

In the world of politics in the here and now, it was an eventful day as well. The polls saw a very high turnout throughout the day, and the Likud and Kadima parties are racing neck and neck to the finish line.

At first glance it looks as if the people of Israel are battling between the Right Wing views of Bibi Netanyahu in Likud and the more Centrist views of Tzipi Livni and Kadima, but that only gives part of the picture. Many Israelis felt that none of the big three parties spoke for their interests and ideals, and so they voted for smaller parties that you won't hear about in the news. Some of those parties are ultra-Right Wing, but many are moderate and ultra-Left Wing parties. In all, total of 34 different parties submitted lists of candidates. Once the major parties' seats are decided, it will still be necessary to negotiate with the other parties, including the smallest parties who managed to get seats in the Knesset, in order to establish a government. In order to form a coalition the prospective Prime Minister will need 61 seats out of 120 to support him or her.

If this entire process seems a bit like voodoo to you, you are not alone. Many Israelis would like the system to be different, more transparent and more directly controlled by the voters themselves. Some Israelis point out that the State is young and we haven't quite got all the bugs worked out. Others point out that the process for electing the President in the US is at just as murky for the average voter.

Imagine a gray and windy day. It's not so much raining as misting, but it's a thick mist and cuts visibility down to a couple hundred meters (yards) or so. Now, give that a golden tint and make the mist super fine sand instead of tiny water drops. If you take a deep breath of the air, the smell reminds you of the underside of your bed when you went looking for something that got lost under there.

If you are asthmatic, the dust makes it very hard to breathe. You'll need your inhaler a lot, and you should cover your face with a scarf. Sure, you might look like a one of those religious fanatics, but everyone understands. If you really care about appearances, just use a knitted scarf that's obviously European.

The sand is really fine, so even though you have the windows closed, you won't be saved from it's effects. It seems to magically appear as a thin film on your floor -- more so than on regular days, and that says a lot.

That's a Tel Avivi sandstorm.

It's not dramatic like in the movies. No one goes running for cover. Life goes on as normal, but perhaps a bit muted, just like the color of the sky and landscape. You wish it were rain instead of sand. We really need the rain. A grayish day like this should really bring rain. But you have to admit, the golden color is kinda pretty.

Here's a cool video from some geeky guys with a camera and a bunch of balloons in Tel Aviv. This looks like a fun weekend project!

I was just looking at a satellite image of Israel on some else's blog, and I noticed something spectacular. You can actually see the borders of Israel from space.

If you want to try this for yourself, go to http://maps.google.com and type "Israel" in the search bar. Switch to Satellite view, then hover over the Satellite button to see the show labels checkbox and turn off the labels. You can see the borders quite clearly at seven marks up from the bottom of the zoom slider.

I've said before that I don't like to talk about politics on this site. I'd rather keep it politics-free and just show you what living in Israel is actually like. People tell me that they are surprised that we have highways. They don't expect to see modern shopping malls or tree-lined streets. And, where are all the camels? (I'd like to know that, too. I've only seen two camels the whole time I've lived in Israel, both in the Negev, and one of them was serving as a carnival ride.)

The thing is, it's hard to watch what's going on right now and NOT talk about politics. I mean, people are DYING! That's not just politics. That's a lot more, and I can't just ignore it here on StreamingIsrael, pretend that it isn't happening.

Here's a cool clip I found on YouTube today.

First off, let me make something really clear. I am a lefty. Yes, that kind of lefty. The liberal kind that thinks that there should be a Two State Solution and all that jazz. I'm a Lefty and a Zionist, which may freak some of you right out, but trust me, these two things are NOT in opposition.

I don't like to talk about the whole Israel v. Palestine thing or Israel v. Arabs thing here. It's much too complex to talk about in the midst of a site about Israel in general and I don't want to give the idea that I think that there are any simple answers. Anyone who tells you that there are simple answers is full of it and has absolutely no idea what's going on here or what has gone on here in the last 100 years.

BUT... there's no REAL logic in closing down a West Bank factory because you oppose the occupation. When you pull a factory out of a place like the Barkan Industrial Park, you aren't really saying "the occupation is bad". You are really taking away jobs from the people that you claim to be standing up for.

I would not live in the West Bank. Let's make that clear. No matter HOW cheap it is in Ariel, that's not reason enough for me. However, I wouldn't think twice about taking a job in the West Bank, if the company was an equal opportunity employer, and especially if there were many Palestinians employed there.

Hell, I'd like to see a lot more (non-Jewish) Arabs employed in high tech startups in Tel Aviv. So far, I've only met one. ONE! Seriously, there's something wrong with that. It's exactly like having no black or female programmers in a startup in Oakland, California. Exactly like that.

The international boycotts around Israel and the Occupied Territories are misguided at best, absolutely anti-Jewish at worst. Hurting pro-Palestinian academics and closing down factories that hire Palestinians is NOT the way to peace in the Middle East.

Will someone please wake up and smell the coffee??!!!

Well, I'm working on fixing things up again, and of course, in the process something had to go wrong. Oops!

My theme kinda died with my Drupal upgrade, and I had forgotten about the customizations that I had done to Alek-2.0 to make it look StreamingIsrael-ish and not SEOposition-ish. It's after 1 o'clock in the morning, and this is SO not going to be finished tonight.

However, please come back soon, because there's LOTS of new stuff coming up. I have a few blog posts worth of new video and photos, including empty streets and the inside of Belinson hospital on Yom Kippur. Yup, silly me, I fell off my bike while trying to show you how cool it is to ride your bike on empty Israeli streets on Yom Kippur. (No worries, nothing's broken!)

I'm also launching a Ustream.tv show where you'll be able to see a different side of the Streaming Israel world. I'll be doing shows about immigration, business, politics, learning Hebrew, and all sorts of other stuff. I've even got a couple of cool interviews lined up with folks you might find interesting, so check it out.