Burning Man Fest Gets Green Light From Israel Court
Image by Abra Cohen
An Israeli court has ordered Beersheba police to allow the Israeli version of the Burning Man festival to take place.
Midburn is scheduled to take place on May 20-May 24 in the desert in Ramat HaNegev. Some 6,500 people are expected for the event.
Police and festival organizers have been arguing over various aspects of the permit for four months, according to reports. On Sunday, the Beersheba Magistrate’s Court imposed a stop work order on the festival at the request of police, bringing to a halt work on more than 70 art installations and dozens of theme camps, according to the Times of Israel.
The court on Monday ordered police to provide a permit for the event, but laid out rules about indecent exposure.
Among the police demands that the court ordered the festival to adhere to are that nudity be allowed only in closed-off areas where minors are not permitted, no glass bottles, no motorized bikes, and the posting of CCTV cameras which cannot film inside tents and private areas, according to the Jerusalem Post.
The festival, modeled after the annual one-week event held in Black Rock Desert, Nevada, sets up a temporary city “creating a platform which will allow a communal life style, creativity, art and radical self-expression,” according to the Midburn website. It is the second annual Midburn event, held after two years of smaller-scale, unofficial events.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
