Just in time for Halloween, Jakob Nielsen does an Alertbox column on Celebrating Holidays and Special Occasions on Websites (Alertbox Oct. 2002). Interestingly, he cites a study his consultancy did surveying 56 websites from the U.S., U.K., and Israel on each of seven holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, Presidents’ Day, Purim, and St. Patrick’s Day.
And indeed, at least one weblog I frequent had a holiday theme set up for Halloween. I bet Google trotted out a pumpkin logo for the occassion.
So I thought, "jolly good idea, I should do that". Of course, I don’t celebrate Halloween. What do I celebrate? Hanukah? (actually, a relatively cool holiday, as far as Israeli Holidays go) Ramadan? (I hear it’s around the corner, or already started. I think it would be cool to mark Ramadan once – lots of Israelis fast on Yom Kippur, not out of religious observance, but just to see if they can endure the one day fast. Think how much harder it would be to not eat for a whole month during daylight hours, all the while carrying on with work as usual. Although it gets dark early now…)
No. The closest special date to commemorate was yesterday, November 4th, the anniversary of the assassination of the Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin.
Yossi Gurvitz, who is a real essayist and not a wimpy blogger like myself, wrote eloquently about the murder and the way Israeli society chose to commemorate it while repressing thought about its real implications.
As an aside, Yossi recalls singing a Monthy Python drinking song when he heard of Rabin’s assassination. I heard about it in even less decorous state. On the night of the peace demonstration when Rabin was shot, I was sitting at the offices of a multimedia start-up, working on the script for an interactive erotic network game. The manager of the company had been to the demonstration and was watching the news on TV when we heard about the shooting.
But back to Yossi’s essay. I agree with his sentiment, which echoes how I felt very well. Rabin’s murder basically woke us up to the fact that a member of our family is a homocidal maniac. And rather then dealing with the situation with the "show of force" Yossi fantasizes about, we chose to keep quiet and live with the problem, hoping things will "work out".
The current political situation, which just imploded, just underlines the steady feeling left-wing Israelis have, that our lot is not dissimilar to that of a beaten wife.
God, what an aimless rant.