Playboy Columnist Calls Israel’s ‘Burning Man’ Festival ‘Ultimate Revenge on Hitler’
by Shiryn Ghermezian
The Israeli version of the famed American Burning Man festival is the “ultimate revenge on Hitler,” according to a column in Playboy magazine on Thursday.
In his column, Jeff Weiss also took note of the fact that Midburn — a five-day bacchanal in the Negev Desert, self-described as an event celebrating “a communal life style, creativity, art and radical self-expression” — began on June 8, the day of the Sarona Market terrorist attack in Tel Aviv, which left four people dead.
Weiss asked rhetorically, “What could needle the mustached fascist more than knowing his plans failed and the descendants of the survivors are throwing a massive countercultural freak fest in the same desert that Abraham wandered?”
The theme of this year’s festival, around which art installations were designed, was “Abra cadabra,” which means, “‘I will create as I speak” in ancient Aramaic. Among the artistic creations was a life-size wooden Noah’s Ark, called “No One’s Ark;” a pirate ship; and a giant neon rabbit.
Weiss recounted that a Jewish couple who met during set construction for Midburn the week before got married inside the man-made rabbit during the festival, which, he said, was attended by over 8,000 people, significantly more than participated in its inaugural counterpart in 2014.
Midburn is modeled after the annual, week-long Burning Man event that takes place in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. Burning Man draws tens of thousands of people every year, including many celebrities, and about 65,000 participants took part in 2015. Burning Man will celebrate its 30th anniversary over Labor Day weekend.