New Year for Trees

This year's celebration of the trees' new year (http://jerusalemblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/tu-bshvat-in-jerusalem.html ) came a day late but not a grush short. The celebration was Friday morning on the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall. The brass band featured a washboard. Where do you buy a washboard nowadays? I suppose in a music store. My old favorites the stilt-walking trees and dryads were back, one orange tree pushing a stroller that cradled a flowering shrub. The prize goes to the giant dragon puppet, moving like a sinuous serpent -- a credit to its three human controllers. At Kikar Tsion an orchestra played. At the top of the midrakhov an Israeli pop group played and the crowd sang along. In between another bandstand provided space for more musicians. One wonderful violinist played what sounded sometimes Celtic and at other times Slavic, making me wonder about the possible influence of the Wild Geese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_of_the_Wild_Geese ).

Copyright 2011 Jane S. Fox