Adloyada

Adloyada is a composite word in Hebrew meaning "until not knowing." It is a feature of Purim in Israel that not only do all the kids dress up, but that many towns have parades called "adloyada." Its supposed to represent the Talmudic acceptance of men drinking too much until they can't tell the difference between a man and a woman! That is only allowed once a year.
Purim itself represents the commemoration of the saving of the Jewish community in ancient Persia by Queen Ester and Mordechai from the leader Haman who planned to destroy it. Lucky is did survive, since the re-establishment of the Jewish community in Eretz Israel was made by Jews such as Ezra and Nehemiah who returned later from the Persian exile. Of course, this was a thousand years before Islam, but we still have problems with the Persians.
Wednesday we happened to be visiting Ra'anana and we were impressed by the level of security, which was high not only because of the Purim festival with so many children in the streets, but because it was the end of the mourning period for the Hizbollah arch-terrorist Mugniyeh, blown up in Damascus, and Nasrullah vowed revenge (even though Israel denied any role in his murder). Because of this, the West Bank was closed off, and unfortunately we know that they have a blood lust and want to kill Jewish children. There were hundreds of police and different kinds of security guards, and the route was well protected before the parade started. The main road Ahuza thru Ra'anana was closed at the entrance and we had to park far away and walk. Then the adloyada parade started, and because it was an Israeli parade it went in the reverse direction compared to American ones, i.e. from left to right (only joking). This parade was a small one, mostly with kids dancing and home-made floats, compared to the big parades in Tel Aviv and Holon.
Tomorrow we are making our annual pilgrimage down to Beersheva to see our grandchildren in their costumes. This is a typical Israeli custom, and since it's not a solemn event, there is always a party with lots of food and drink (alcohol is allowed). Its nice that we Jews can follow our peculiar customs in our own land and enjoy our culture as we wish, but unfortunately even while enjoying ourselves we still have to protect our children against hate-filled murderers. Anyway, Happy Purim!