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Sacred site, Israel

Mount Meron

The tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, where thousands of Jewish boys have their first haircut, the upsherin, on Lag BaOmer.

Meron, in the Upper Galilee in northern Israel, holds the tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, a sage of the 2nd century. On Lag BaOmer, the 33rd day of the counting of the Omer between Passover and Shavuot, crowds gather there to light bonfires, sing and dance. Many families bring three-year-old boys for the upsherin, their first haircut, leaving the sidelocks, or payot, uncut.

The first haircut

Upsherin, from the Yiddish for 'shearing off', is held when a boy turns three. Until then his hair is left uncut, which some liken to the rule in the Torah against eating a tree's fruit in its first three years. At Meron, fathers and rabbis cut the first locks, and the side hair is left as payot. The boy is given sweets and begins to learn the Hebrew letters, and many families give money to charity by the weight of the hair.

Lag BaOmer at Meron

The Lag BaOmer gathering at Meron draws very large crowds, mainly from Haredi communities, in some years several hundred thousand people. In April 2021 a crush on a narrow walkway killed 45 people, one of Israel's worst civil disasters, and a state commission of inquiry later criticised safety arrangements. Since then attendance has been limited by permits and the site has been rebuilt to manage crowds.

Hairstyles of Mount Meron

UpsherinFirst haircuts at the tomb on Lag BaOmerPayotThe sidelocks left uncut at the upsherin

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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