Safed

Safed

by Raya Sorkin, Amal Comprehensive High School, Safed

My city, Safed is known as a city of artists and a combination of secular and religious population. It is unique in its beauty and is visited by lots of tourists every year.

First of all, as I have already mentioned, Safed is known as a city of artists. It has a great artists' colony in the old city which contains galleries of various wonderful artists, among them are my parents.

Second of all, in Safed there are a few parts which are inhabited by the religious population. Those parts of the city are closed to traffic on Holy days and Saturdays. Other parts contain a secular population which has no problems with driving to the sea with their families on Saturdays.

Most of the time the two groups, religious and secular, manage to get along and live in harmony with each other, but sometimes they don't. One example is the protest which took place some time ago. A new restaurant was opened in Safed, and it's owner decided to keep it open on Saturday. Naturally, the religious people disagreed. I, as a proud secular teenager, participated in the protest whose purpose was to keep the restaurant open.

This subject leads me to talk about another related subject, which is: teenagers in Safed. There is absolutely nothing to do here on Friday nights, except for going to the one open restaurant. This city can be very boring for young people.

Though, in the summertime a unique festival is held in Safed, and is the "Klazmerim." Musicians from all over the world come to Safed and perform here, to the enjoyment of the people around. Most of the time, the performances are held outside and don't cost money.

In conclusion, Safed is one of a kind and has it's bad and good aspects. I like living here, but I'll move to another city when I grow up.

This article previously appeared in TEN - The Youth Newspaper of the Amit & Amal Schools in Safed, Spring 1998.