Bonfires and sidelocks: a Lag B’Omer photo essay

Tens of thousands of Ultra-Orthodox Jews make a pilgrimage to Meron in Israel's north each Lag B'Omer to visit the grave of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.

It is an extraordinary spectacle: pilgrims sing and dance around bonfires referencing a statement in the Zohar that Rabbi Simon shone so brightly that his students could not gaze upon him. Children play with bows and arrows, said to represent the rainbow as God's covenant with Noah. Ultra-Orthodox parents, who keep their sons hair long until the third birthday, often cut the child's hair for the first time at Meron on Lag B'Omer, leaving the distinctive sidelocks worn by Haredi boys and men.

Lag B'Omer (33rd day of the Omer) is a celebratory festival, a break from the semi-mourning between Pesach and Shavuot. It is variously regarded as celebrating the end of a plague that killed Rabbi Akiva's students, the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Romans, and the life of Rabbi Shimon. It is a traditional day for weddings.

But the day has not always been a good one. In 2021, at least 45 people – mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews, known as “Haredim” in Hebrew – died in a stampede when over 100,000 people gathered in a space meant for only 15,000.

In 2025 Lag B'Omer falls on the evening of Thursday 15 May.