Time your travel to Israel, part 1.

Israel has many festivals, religious and National which bring with them good reasons to visit and good reasons to stay away. The dates vary slightly from year to year because the Jewish calender is calculated according to the moon and the Gregorian calender to the sun. Don't forget Jewish holidays start from the sundown of the day preseeding the date given. I have not included Muslim holidays, we can talk about later. I shall give you the dates for 2010 Jewish holidays in Israel. So....

when to visit or not to visit Israel:

30th January, Tu Bishvat no problem visiting on this , the Israeli Arbor Day, you probably won't even notice it.

20th February, Purim, my absolute favorite holiday, and a great time to be in Israel. ALL school kids dress up in fancy dress for school the day before, and then one of the adjacent days - different in each city - there are float parades in EVERY city. Very colorful and great fun. ALL the clubs etc have fancy dress parties. It doesn't all happen on the actual day, the parties are usually in the days leading up to Purim.

30 March - 8th April Passach/Passover. If you enjoy bread beware, most shops do not sell any bread or flour products during this week.(none of those delicious Pita breads!) Also school holidays, and everything is overrun with Israeli school kids.

11th April you have a Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah), there is of course a subdued atmosphere, and the evening before there will not be any places of entertainment open, as well as various other establishments. There are also ceremonies in most centers. People will not take well to loud music and other shows of disrespect.

18th and 19th of April, bring a dilemma to travellers, the 18th is Israel Memorial Day (Yom HaZikaron) in memory of fallen soldiers, and almost everything is closed from the previous night. But at sundown on 18th the memorial day ends and the biggest party of the year begins. Israeli Independents Day. Parties in the street, fairs, outdoor free shows in every city, fireworks, the works. So it is a good time to visit but the memorial day needs to be taken into consideration.
Photo from Congregation B'nai Torah