Photo Credit: Gideon Markowicz/Flash90

An Israeli father and his daughter are collecting wood in preparation for Lag Ba’omer, the 33rd day of the Omer count (that began the night after the Passover seder).

In Israel, this holiday is observed religiously by everyone, or, at least, the bonfire part of it. This Saturday night, expect to see the sky across Israel go red and smoky.

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The more religiously astute know Lag Ba’omer marks the yahrzeit of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, and the date when the plague that mowed down Rabbi Akiva’s students – stopped. But all of Israel know Lag Ba’omer is when you collect all the loose wood in the neighborhood and set fire to it.

Some throw a few potatoes into the fire for a baked potato experience that cannot be beat.

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Yori Yanover has been a working journalist since age 17, before he enlisted and worked for Ba'Machane Nachal. Since then he has worked for Israel Shelanu, the US supplement of Yedioth, JCN18.com, USAJewish.com, Lubavitch News Service, Arutz 7 (as DJ on the high seas), and the Grand Street News. He has published Dancing and Crying, a colorful and intimate portrait of the last two years in the life of the late Lubavitch Rebbe, (in Hebrew), and two fun books in English: The Cabalist's Daughter: A Novel of Practical Messianic Redemption, and How Would God REALLY Vote.