It's a fruit, not a veg, and it splats! Catsup with the Besor Tomato Fest

At Besor's Shalom Park, on the northern edge of the Negev, a weekend battle is guaranteed to stain fighters with red pulp. It's a tomato festival, complete with mosh pit, which is modelled after La Tomatina, a pitched tomato fight that takes place in Bunyol, Spain every year at the height of the harvest. Some 30,000 people gather to pelt each other with 115,000 kilograms of overripe ammo and revel in the foodfight every year, as the town's population triples in size. The tamer Israeli version is now in its third year, and promoters aim for a gentler image, even extolling the beneficial effects of astringent tomato juice on the complexion. But if the relentless High holydays and so much family togetherness drives you to the brink of hurling something, this definitely is the place to go.