Neil Young performs at the Begin Centre

I HAVE CHAGED THE SETTINGS SO IT SHOULD BE EASIER TO LEAVE A COMMENT NOW.
We went to a Bat Mitzvah at the Begin Centre last night. I was worried that Habonim (the socialist zionist youth movement I grew up in and die-hard opponents of of the right-wing Begin) would call up asking for my membership back. Whatever you think of Begin though, the guy had some generous friends. The centre is beautiful and built on an amazing piece of property looking across Derech Hevron at the old city. The Bat Mitzvah was out on the terrace in the sukkah. There had been a march to the old city earlier in the day and there were tons of people walking and driving along derech hevron. I saw one haredi guy roller-blading graceful curves down the sidewalk southwards. The moon rose at around 5:00 (we're already on daylight savings here) and it was a huge, orange harvest moon. It rose just to the north of the old city off to the right of the tower of the Dormition abbey. Very beautiful.
I once read or heard that harvest moons are really caused by the harvest, that is, the particulate matter in the air from all the agricultural activity -- rural smog -- causes the distortion. That's why the effect is only noticeable when the moon is down by the horizon. I don't know if that's true but sure enough as the moon rose it went back to being a normal-sized moon-coloured moon.
Earlier in the day we went to the museum of Islamic art with the boys. They had cool art workshops for kids (the boys both chose to make swords, go figger). The place is a little weird though. None of the staff are arab, and the little play they had for kids -- I was expecting some piece of arab folklore -- was all about King David and how he founded Jerusalem.
On a similar note, a little piece of conversation I overheard in one sukkah I went to: There were pretty canvas panels with pictures of Jerusalem in the time of the Second Temple. A non-religious Israeli who was joining the group came in and looked at the panels and said "Oh how nice; Jerusalem but with all the mosques taken out. It looks beautiful." The guy mistook the past (no mosques in the time of the second temple, which pre-dates islam) for a creepy fantasy -- and liked it. What exactly happens to the thirty thousand muslims who live in the old city today when you erase the mosques? I wondered. There is probably a great doctoral dissertation to be written on Jewish representations of Jerusalem that incorporate and at the same time obscure the Muslim or Christian visual elements of the city.
We are off to Tel Aviv today.