Jerusalem of Above and Jerusalem of Below

No matter how holy a city, commercialism
rules.

After already having fulfilled the standard verse of "next year in Jerusalem", I took it one step further last Thursday night. I went along to the opening ceremony of the Maccabiah - the World Maccabi Sports games, an International competition where around 7,000 Jews from around 70 countries compete against each other. It is a kind of mini-Olympics, where past and future Olympians compete along-side amateurs. I last attended this ceremony 20 years ago, as a teenager. But I digress, the special part was the opening ceremony itself, which more or less started with the singing of Hatikva, the Israeli National Anthem. Singing this for probably the first time as an adult, in a crowd of 35,000 people, in the capital of the Jewish people (as the prime-minister told us on the night - Israel is not a country belonging to the Israelis, it belongs to all Jews).

South African Surprise in the middle of Denmark

I arrived for my new job in Denmark just in time for a 3 day retreat! The retreat is an annual even in the office for the whole of the branch which I work for (roughly 50 people) and is partly a team building exercise, partly fun, and partly work. The retreat location has been kept secret from us - primarily so the fun part can be a surprise. But more on that (and the fact that I now have permanent accommodation in Copenhagen) in the next post (when I have some more photos too).

In the mean time, during dinner tonight, our treat was a mini-concert by a Danish vocal group called Papaya. The group is basically a collection of people who like African, and in particular South African music and sing a lot of it. They do tours in South Africa (both to sing and to learn) and also do concerts in other countries around Europe. For a group of very pale looking Nords, they were pretty impressive black singers!

Rather than posting my crappy mobile phone footage of them singing the South African National Anthem, I figured a YouTube video would be better...