On lightning vacations, Ultra-Orthodox pour onto segregated Israeli beaches
Israel's ultra-Orthodox have only three weeks of yeshiva break, and they take their brief summer vacation very seriously.
The Sea of Galilee Authority and the Interior Ministry opened an extra beach in the north for a three-week period. The beach will offers segregated bathing hours for women and men to accommodate ultra-Orthodox vacationers.
Aug. 8 marked the beginning of "bein ha-zmanim," “between the times,” or semester break for yeshiva students. Hundreds of thousands of yeshiva students, who during the “zman” (literally “the time,” what they call the semester in the yeshiva world) studiously pore over the Talmud, close up their books and venture out on their brief summer vacation, which lasts exactly three weeks.
In contrast to its studious image, the yeshiva world takes vacation seriously. Danny, an American who studies at the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem, told Al-Monitor, “I’ve planned my vacation far ahead of time. A group of us got together and we’re going to hike large parts of the Israel Trail, visit nature reserves and beaches, and my goal is to finish the bein ha-zmanim with a deep familiarity with the sites of the Land of Israel, north and south.”
Danny said he is considered a prodigy at his yeshiva and did not leave his Talmud behind. “We study in the morning, but from 1 p.m. every day we go out on day trips. Yesterday we visited Masada and the Dead Sea, today Nahal Dragot and Ein Gedi and tomorrow we’ll be in the north. Just as we put effort into study during the zman, we put effort into the bein ha-zmanim, which we see as a zman in itself.”
