A community celebration during COVID-19

Lag B'Omer, a minor Jewish holiday, is traditionally celebrated with major fanfare. Parades, picnics, bonfires, music and displays of Jewish pride mark the occasion that falls 25 days after the end of Pesach, on the 33rd day of the Omer count. It commemorates the miraculous ending of an epidemic that killed 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva in the second century. It is also the anniversary of the passing of one of Rabbi Akiva's foremost students, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, also known as the Rashbi, the author of the Zohar, the foundational text of Jewish mysticism (kabbalah). The epidemic is attrib...