Bedouin Disco and Masada

Last Thursday evening, our Boston federation organized a trip to Masada with 1000 immigrant/students, again mostly Ethiopian and Russian though a bunch of Frenchmen, Americans, Latin Americans and others. The first stop was a Bedouin tent near Masada. This was perhaps the most inauthentic Bedouin experience yet. They hired a DJ and had a big dance party, which was totally awesome. It was amazing how quickly the Ethiopians have adopted elements of African-American hip-hop culture, in their dress, in their dance, etc. After the Disco, at around 2 am, we reboarded the bus to head to hike up Masada. After a really long, dull light show that told us the history of Masada in Hebrew we could barely understand (this is also a story we already knew) we hiked up the hill, only half-conscious, to see the sunrise. By the time we made it to the top, we could barely keep our eyes open and saw the sunrise briefly before passing out. We also listened to a few actors pretend to be locals of Masada during the time of the rebellion. I don't know how much they pay these people but I feel sorry for them. Even more interesting were the Russian JRR Tolkien fans who brought their own fake swords which they desgined and planned on doing some kind of re-enactment of Masada meets The Hobbit up-top, though I was too sleepy to actually look for them when we on top of Masada. After an hour or so, we headed down the hill and back home later that morning.