Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

A Tour To Be Paid for in Psalms

Sometimes when green ideals and zealous Orthodoxy meet, the results are a little bizarre.

The Haredi media is reporting that Eliezer Zahavi, a green-inclined resident from the coastal Israeli city of Bat Yam, has been salvaging reusable items from people’s trash for months — wooden boards, scraps of plastic, bits of metal. He has constructed a wagon, on which he’s about to start offering rides to the public.

But this is no normal seaside pleasure ride, paid for with money: He demands spiritual reward. The fare is paid in Psalms — he will transport people in the donkey-drawn wagon without expectation of monetary reward, rather they must read from the Biblical book of Psalms for the duration of the journey.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.