July 9 is Argentine Independence Day, a fact we were not aware of until some of our South American friends from our congregation invited us to a celebration of the event this year.
The celebration was held in the same room at the מתנ"ס Matnas (a common Hebrew word that is actually an acronym of מרכז תרבות נוער וספורט Mercaz Tarbut No'ar v'Sport, which means "Center of Culture, Youth, and Sports") where our congregation holds Friday night prayers.
Since July 9 fell on Saturday this year, the celebration was on Saturday night. The room was PACKED. Almost everyone there was from South America, of course, but at least one couple we know was from Uruguay rather than Argentina. Probably others were, as well. Anyway, I think we may well have been the only ones there who were NOT South Americans. But, for the evening, we were honorary Argentinians, which we loved!
The theme for the evening was clearly the tango. Of course, everything was in Spanish except the Nahariya mayor's short welcome speech (which was in Hebrew), meaning that I caught very little of it. David caught quite a bit more since he knows more Spanish than I. But we both really enjoyed the evening. There was singing, music, poetry readings, and, of course, some tango dancers!
Here are a couple of pictures I took from my spot in the middle of the audience using my iPhone 3G. The quality is not the best, but it will give you a little idea of the atmosphere. The first picture shows our good friend and fellow member of Congregation Emet v'Shalom, Julio, reading a poem about the tango: 
This second picture shows a couple doing the tango. It was particularly hard to get a picture of dancers that was not blurred due to their motion. Even this one is a little blurry, but it will give you a bit of an idea of the dance:
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