The snowstorm that came from the Mediterranean (or perhaps it didn’t come from the sea, but that’s fine as well) covered the city despised by the European Union. Cars, motorcycles and buses disappeared, people in black hid in their homes, an abyss descended from the sky and bathed the streets, the markets, caravans, lanes and even the Knesset itself in white… Yershalaim vanished – as if the great city had never existed on Earth.
This strange weather came to Israel at the end of one day in the winter month of December 2013.
Source: EPA/ATEF SAFADI
The weather conditions that Yakuts call summer, and Kishinev boys like me saw for three months in a row and in their naïveté considered to be an ordinary winter, paralyzed the capital of a civilized country with a battle-worthy land army, the finest air force in the world and a modest textile plant in Dimona. Submarines armed to the teeth threw themselves on to the land, like whales, trying to defend Jerusalem from the merciless elements. Tens of thousands of people were deprived of electricity for over a day, which in a country without central heating meant frostbite and pneumonia for the elderly and small children. Far-sighted home owners, not tempted by electric stoves, heated food, tea and children with gas, while the rest cursed the government, who were no doubt keeping warm while we froze here…
This would all be funny… If it hadn’t turned out, once more, that here we are always prepared for the previous war. We make brilliant conclusions from the pile of crap that we end up in from time to time. Commissions report in accessible form, so that any minister can understand, that:
1. NEXT TIME we shouldn’t send tanks into Lebanon without intelligence reports,
2. NEXT TIME we shouldn’t send a bus full of young children to a wall of fire, but we should (next time) get new fire-fighting helicopters.
3. NEXT TIME it’s not recommended before the start of winter to leave tree branches hanging right next to electricity lines
4. NEXT TIME we shouldn’t ignore reports about tunnels being dug in Gaza.
I wouldn’t be surprised if after the Yom Kippur War, the army accepted the recommendations that were still in effect to ignore the opinion of Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan, may they both rest in peace.
But while points 1 and 4 are about wars, and point 2 about the terrible Karmel fire, for God’s sake, a bit of winter is nothing more than a bit of winter. Of course, Israelis and proportions are incompatible things, but not to that extent. First the roads to Jerusalem were closed off because of the abundant snow and the sheet ice that was so terribly dangerous (hello, Yakuts, stop laughing!). Then the drivers who were sick of sitting in traffic jams simply abandoned their cars by the side of the road, which also did not improve traffic, and when, finally, the armored vehicles cleared the road, the entire population of Greater Gush-Dan (Tel-Aviv) and Lesser Sharon puts on socks and sandals and went to Jerusalem to see the snow.
People carried snowballs around, showing them off. We know that snowballs are an exotic sight here.
An oil painting: lines of cars… Traffic jams for hours in both directions… And all of this so husbands could through balls of melting snow at their wives and with a feeling a profound satisfaction take with their entire family to a shopping center, and warm up in a restaurant. If you look at the expenses on our pricy petrol, the meal and the accompanying purchases of unnecessary rubbish, you could fly your whole family to Vienna for the weekend for half the price. Rumor has it that it snows there every year, and people don’t line up to make a snowman with two carrots (there’s no escaping our sense of humor…)
Source: Elena Varivoda Wolfson
But the snow melted, the light returned, and the commission for investigating the emergency and cleaning up the consequences finished eating its tuna sandwiches and sent recommendations to the Appropriate Channels, where they were put in a folder labelled “Other”, for a second snow storm of this kind will not take place, because such things can never happen.
December 2014 passed, and the municipalities breathed a sigh of relief, but here the unthinkable took place: January came. And with it the weather forecast for another snow storm. Meteorologists are respected in Israel: they are people who have to find synonyms for the word “hot” for nine months, and the country fell into a trance. Or rather, the country would have started to prepare itself calmly, but television did not let this happen. The upcoming parliamentary elections were forgotten (no great loss, to be quite honest), and all employees capable of holding a microphone were dusted off and sent all over the country. In advance, so they didn’t get stuck in the next snowdrifts.
On the 6th of January, the journalists’ slogan was “Oh no, what’s going to happen!” They interviewed people who experienced power cuts last winter, with the righteous pride of the impartial they demonstrated the snow-removal machines being prepared for battle, and showed the empty shelves of groceries stores for so long that people living in areas where snow cannot fall by definition also rushed off to buy food, muttering: “Who knows, maybe people from Jerusalem will come here with their shopping bags and clear the shelves.”
And then came the 7th. And it turned out that we had once more brilliantly prepared to ward off the attack by last year’s snow. There was a little snow in Safed, a little in Jerusalem, but, miracle of miracles! – the most snow fell on Mount Hermon. There were power cuts, of course, but mainly in the valleys – no one was warned there that trees could fall on power lines not just from the weight of snow, but from strong winds. Well, four or five hours without electricity – that’s great, isn’t it, kids? We’ll build a fire in the lounge, make soup and on the last few percentage points of our iPhones batteries we’ll put a post on Facebook: “Damn it, we’ve been without power for almost two hours now!” Just so Zuckerberg doesn’t go mad wondering what you’ve been doing for two hours.
Source: Elena Varivoda Wolfson
Those who did have electricity were worse off. They enjoyed the hysteria of commentators, who seemed to be competing to see whose winter hat looked more idiotic.
“I’m in Safed. Lessons have been cancelled. An urgent meeting by the municipality is trying to decide whether to resume lessons tomorrow.” (As if that has any significance, given our education system).
“Our freezing camera crew is reporting from Jerusalem, barely able to move their lips. It’s plus 2 degrees here, and the night forecast is zero.” (Someone give them an award, Amundsen is crying in delight and envy!)
“Good evening, Mickey, I’m in Beersheba.” (What for??? Operation Desert Storm ended a long time ago, what do you expect there – snow?)
The summary on the morning of the 8th was that snow storms aren’t what they used to be. This one disappointed us. We put so much into preparing for it, and look what it did… Don’t worry, citizens, no one has abolished an earthquake in the future, from which we will draw the correct conclusions literally the day after we crawl out from the ruins of our houses.
