Happy Lag Ba’Omer, everyone!
Chag sameach!
Now in “English for furriners”?
according to Wikipedia
Well! Learn a new thing every day! 
So… what exactly happens with those bows and arrows and balls and bats? I know what would happen in my schools if you sent out a group of unprotected teachers and a horde of students with bows and arrows and bats. And it ain’t pretty.
Holy crap, feels like Lag Ba’Omer 2005 was yesterday.
So, Alessan, just out of curiosity, how do the secular folks in Tel Aviv celebrate Lag Ba’Omer? And everything else, for that matter…
Is Lag B’Omer more of an Israeli holiday now than a Jewish holiday? Because I’m an American Jew and all I know about the holiday is some footnote I read in a book as a child. Then again, we are Reform and only celebrate the American biggies-- High Holidays, Passover, and Hanukkah (aka Christmas, Now With More Days!).
Lag B’Omer is definitely a Jewish holiday, as opposed to a secular Israeli one. It gets much more play in Israel, than in the rest of the world.
On Lag B’Omer many people gather at the gravesite of R. Shimon Bar Yochai in Meron. Tradition has it that Lag B’Omer is R. Shimon’s yahrtzeit (anniversary of the day of death), and so many people go there to celebrate.
Traditionally, many Orthodox Jews (including yours truly) do not shave or take haircuts from Passover until Lag B’Omer. There is also a Jewish tradition (amongst some Ashkenazi Jews) not to cut a child’s hair until he’s three years old. Some people put off the hair cutting until Lag B’Omer (especially if the third birthday falls between Passover and Lag B’Omer) and go to Meron to cut the child’s hair.
Zev Steinhardt
Can’t tell you about Tel Aviv, but back in Haifa where I grew up it was all about the bonfires. On the beach, in the woods, in parks, empty lots or just in your back yard, everyone lights a fire. When you’re too little or too big it’s mainly a family affair, but for teenagers… you grab some wood, lots of food, maybe some booze, hopefully some members of the opposite sex, a guitar if that’s your thing (and if you want to get somewhere with the members of the opposite sex), and stay out till dawn. By the end of the night the entire city smells vaguely burnt. It’s not a fun night to be a fireman, but most everyone else has a ball.
I missed the bit about cutting hair(?)
Otherwise, it sounds like fun!
The period of the Omer (the time between Passover and Shavuot) is, for reasons that are now kind of obscure, considered a time of semi-mourning. That doesn’t apply to Lag B’Omer, though (for reasons that are, once again, obscure). Some people stop observing the semi-mourning Omer customs after Lag B’Omer.
Not cutting your hair is a Jewish mourning custom (though I’m sure there are Jews who don’t do it). My MIL’s mother died a couple of years ago, and I remember seeing her toward the end of the mourning period (one year for a parent) with semi-long hair instead of her normal short hair.
The semi-mourning customs are also why weddings aren’t performed during the Omer, or at least not before Lag B’Omer (different rabbis and congregations do different things wrt this).
Oh, and the Omer is totally why I haven’t had my hair cut or colored even though it desperately needs it. No, it has nothing whatsoever to do with my being a lazy person with a genius for procrastination. 
Happy Lag ba’Omer to you too!
BTW, Lag ba’Omer is often called the “Scholars’ Holiday.” It’s my Hebrew birthday, and I’m the most academically inclined of my family.
BTW**2, my older brother, the future talmud chazzan, was born on Shabbat Shirah.
Oh, and fetus, Lag ba’Omer 2005 was a looooong time ago, we’re in 5766 shanot ba’olam right now.