Another Challange

May's challenge was a real challenge to me.
What does being an Israeli mean to you? Scrap a page...

At first I thought I'm not going to participate this month.
During the last week of May I found myself categorizing everything I saw as good or bad qualities of Israelies.

The night of submission I found myself sitting at the computer and searching for information, photos, trying to figure out how to scrap my thoughts, but my mind was racing with ideas, so the page turned out a mess.

So I started anew, with a different take.




The photos were taken from these sites, and credit is due:

The flower: http://totolotek.org/he/wiki/%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9D_%D7%94%D7%96%D7%99%D7%9B%D7%A8%D7%95%D7%9F_%D7%9C%D7%97%D7%9C%D7%9C%D7%99_%D7%9E%D7%A2%D7%A8%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%AA_%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%9C.html

Flags flapping: http://www.jerusalemshots.com/Jerusalem_he103-1444.html

Hat: http://www.notes.co.il/eshed/32372.asp

Falafel: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-1939000,00.html

Candles: http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/650/029.html

Prickly Cactus: http://www.tiuli.com/flower_info.asp?flower_id=169


The text reads:
"In one of my favorite episodes of "the west wing", the following question appears:
So What do you call a Society that has to just live every day with the idea that the pizza place you’re eating in can just blow up without any warning? ("Isaac and Ishmael", season 3).
And the answers was, of course, Israel.
During the last decade and a half that has been the essence of being an Israeli, in my mind. Living every day under a threat. Living home everyday with the promise of not giving in to that threat. That we'll keep on living our lives no matter what.
What else is an Israeli? Symbols. A lot of symbols."

The flower (French Lavender) is the one that appears on stickers I used to get every year in Memorial day as a child in school. I think they still give them out. Every memorial day, and only on memorial day.
The flags flapping on top of cars during Independence day and usually the week before and the week after.
The hat is the one everyone used to wear when I was a kid. It's the symbol of the pioneer Israeli, the one that came to this country to build it.
The candles were lit on the floor in a huge square in the middle of Tel-Aviv 13 years ago, right after PM Rabin was murdered. People kept coming to the square where it happened, lit candles, and cried together.
The Falafel - food that's considered to be very much Israeli, and stands for Israeli.
And last - The prickly cactus. It became known as a Nick-name for Israeli-born. They' like the cactus, are prickly on the outside, but sweet and soft on the inside.