Event: Snow in Jerusalem
Date: 9th-11th Tevet
The past year was characterized by stormy winter weather. The snow, which never announces when it will appear, arrived along with General Winter without notice, made a brief appearance on the morning of the 8th of Tevet, for a day and a half - and then calmed down.
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Hours later, the snow began to fall again, covering all of Jerusalem's mountains and blocking it. A full month later, the State of Israel was still licking its wounds from the snow, and for days, tree trimmings were still clearing up damage to collapsed houses and infrastructure.
No one can predict the future. The key to the rains is in the hands of heaven, but the hundreds of people who got stuck on the roads when they came to see the light snow got stuck in the heavy snow that didn't stop falling. Births took place in the snow, and dozens were evacuated by military forces during those days. Tens of thousands of people experienced power outages, and residents in the settlements were cut off from all contact with the outside world, after the snow left them with only candles.
But again, as in the media, and in the new media reality, if not reviewed and published, we will never know how powerful the snow really was. And so the best show in the city was presented in the winter with the white snow and hundreds of evacuees on Saturday evening to public centers as they were rescued from the blocked roads.
Residents were less impressed
The snow itself was a complete surprise to all residents of Jerusalem. Emergency services worked non-stop, evacuating stranded citizens from all possible routes. Military forces, which entered the streets of the capital with commandos, returned the city to the days of the War of Independence.
Newspaper headlines in the following days were filled with stories of the volunteers who evacuated a woman in labor from snow-covered driveways and vehicles, of a government minister who harnessed his vehicle and set out to rescue citizens trapped on the roads, of the mayor of Jerusalem who evacuated emergencies in his private vehicle, and of the council member who distributed stoves to homes.
But the residents themselves, meaning the Jerusalemites or those Christians in isolated communities, were not impressed by the stories, especially after the power outages that lasted for over a day. Not even when they were forced to experience Shabbat, where they warmed themselves by candlelight and hot water boiled on a barbecue set up in the living room.
Clearing the large amount of debris that had piled up on the streets, along with the snow, took over three weeks. There were claims, not unfounded, that clearance was slower in the Haredi communities.
But then the storm arrived in the US, a country accustomed to snow, and the images of the disasters that came from there, despite their high level of preparedness for events of this type, put the 'snow failure of the Jerusalem authorities' in a more pleasant proportion.
