Fasting for Yom Kippur starts upon sun down. This means no eating drinking, bathing, smoking, driving, use of electronics, etc. It is a day of complete rest. I couldn’t help but take advantage of the opportunity to document this event, even though it meant walking around with a camera, clearly against their tradition.

The streets were completely free of car traffic, minus the occasional ambulance. With the streets empty and safe of cars, pedestrians took over the city roads and major highways.

Downtown Holon, the closest city south of Tel-Aviv. Easily in numbers of thousands, this was the main area where everyone got together to see family and old friends.

Doing my best to hide my camera and not be too obvious, I climbed on to the roof of a delivery truck in a near by field to get shots from a higher point of view.

As I was swapping to a much larger 80-200mm telephoto lens on top of the truck’s roof, I quickly realized I was looking just a little too suspicious.

The next morning felt even more surreal. A beautiful sunny day and not a car was being driven on the city streets or major highways throughout the entire country. What was once filled with bustling traffic, was now easily quiet.

Children were free to roam the open streets on bikes, trikes and rollerblades.

It’s a familiar feeling to not see any cars late at night, but it’s a completely different experience during the day. These wide open streets made it feel like I was walking through post apocalyptic times.

Israel’s Route 1, their main highway which leads to and from Tel-Aviv.

An entrance to Mikveh Israel “The Hope of Israel,” the first Jewish Agriculture School in Israel established in 1870.