Friday, May 6, 2011

Pesaḥ advertising

Greetings.

Jewish date:  2 ’Iyyar 5771 (Parashath ’Emor).

Today’s holidays:  Day 17 of the ‘Omer (Judaism), Feast Day of St. Guiness (The Stout) (Church of the SubGenius), Friday of the Second Week of Easter (Roman Catholicism).

It has been quite a while since I posted.  I have experienced my first Pesaḥ (Passover) in Israel, and there is a lot to comment on.  (And I had better get cracking if I want to comment on it.  There are other things coming up that will definitely merit discussion.  Not to mention I am very busy these days.  E.g., I have now received my shipment from the United States, and parts of my apartment look a lot like Tetris and need desperately to be reordered.)  Given my series on holiday advertising in Israel, something one expects to start well before the actual holiday (at least it does in the USA), we will start there.  The holiday advertising I saw did pick up a bit for Pesaḥ, but one would often be unaware of it.  For example:

The former is a fashion advertisement.  The latter is for perfume.  Neither of them gives any impression that these stores are trying to show off their Pesaḥ spirit.  A bit closer is this one:
This one actually shows (and is for) relevant food, though it is not ostentatious.  The closest anyone got to ostentation is this one:
At this place they were actually selling silver utensils which might be used during Pesaḥ.

In the USA, there are not just advertisements seeking to cash in on major holidays, but public decorations for several of them as well.  I did not see any Pesaḥ decorations, and the nearest thing I saw to them were a few signs like this one:

This does not go much further than wishing everyone a happy Pesaḥ.  So far the USA is still beating Israel on commercialization and overdoing of holidays.

I hate to stop here, but my Internet connection has been very unreliable recently, and I would rather get out something than nothing.    I hope to write about preparing for Pesaḥ and Pesaḥ itself soon.

Peace and Shabbath shalom.

’Aharon/Aaron
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