After the snowstorm in Baltimore, my brother Shmuel Yaakov asked me if we have snow, too. “Not here!” I thought. “It hardly snows in Yerushalayim.” Little did I know what was in store for us only a few days later. When we awoke on Thursday morning to a blanket of white covering everything, I assumed it would be like a regular Baltimore snowstorm: no school for the day but cleared streets by noon. But in Yerushalayim, the dramatic effects of this storm lingered for almost a week! On Thursday there was no school, and the buses no longer ran on schedule. B”H, the grocery stores were open, so we could get some Shabbos essentials, but many other stores were closed, and most of the adults were off from work.
The children were overjoyed to play in the snow, build snowmen, and throw snowballs. Some cute little boys near our building had a great time constructing an igloo, though they had never heard the term before! Teenagers also amused themselves by throwing snowballs at passing cars, most of whose drivers took it in good humor.
On Thursday night, it continued to snow, and by Friday morning, more than a foot had fallen. The main streets were somewhat passable, but the side streets hadn’t been cleared at all. Some families who planned to travel for Shabbos attempted to do so, while some changed their plans and remained at home. Two young families were supposed to go to Giva’at Zev for Shabbos for a shalom zachar. In normal weather, this is a 25-minute drive. They decided to attempt the trip despite the weather conditions. Unable to find a willing taxi driver, they finally found someone in a jeep with four-wheel drive, and were soon on their way. Although some of the roads had only a narrow travel path, they proceeded smoothly in their well-equipped snow vehicle. At some point, however, their overconfident driver tried to drive over a mound of snow, and his jeep got stuck. Despite the combined efforts of the men in the car, they couldn’t dislodge the vehicle. Eventually, the two families decided they had better try to hitch a ride back to Yerushalayim. When they finally arrived home, it was about an hour to Shabbos. They somehow managed to put together some basic Shabbos food in time!
Our entire apartment building in Sanhedria lost power on Friday, so we prepared for Shabbos to the best of our ability. We had leftover oil from Chanukah, which we used to light our menorah, and we also lit some additional candles. Baruch Hashem, the power returned at the end of our Friday night seuda, and we thoroughly enjoyed the heat and light for the rest of Shabbos!
In our building, various apartments lost and regained power intermittently through the following Tuesday. But chesed abounded! Neighbors with power offered everything they could, from space in their fridge to a hot shower or just a warm place to sit, and there were many extension cords running from one apartment to another. In another building, someone lent a radiator to a family who had a newborn baby and no power, and hooked it up via extension cord to their apartment so the parents and baby could be somewhat warmer over Shabbos.
How did the mothers cope with this unexpected long vacation, especially coming right on the heels of a long Chanukah vacation? Mrs. F, mother of a large family, expressed her pleasure at having all of her children home at the same time. On Chanukah, her children wanted to be entertained and go on trips, but with this snow vacation, everyone was just stuck in the house. They had fun in the snow for about an hour before they got too cold and came inside. And because there was nowhere to go, they got to enjoy quality family time.
Mrs. G said that her children never experienced snow, and had always longed for a real snowstorm. When they finally got it, they were thrilled and utterly enjoyed every moment! Mrs. E, mother of several boys, felt that, had she known about this in advance, she could have been better prepared. However, it worked out anyway. Her boys played in the snow on Thursday and kept busy with fuse beads for many hours.
As the next week began, every day, I thought, okay, today everything will be back to normal. However, it took a lot longer than I expected. By Tuesday afternoon, the buses were finally back on schedule. Schools restarted on different days. Mrs. E’s boys were back in school on Tuesday, but for the next two days, school began at 10 and ended early so the children would not have to walk home on the dark, icy sidewalks. And even once schools were operating, the buses could not drop off at their regular locations, which were still snow covered, which further complicated pick-ups and drop-offs.
On Sunday afternoon, we decided to venture out to Geula to try to buy some much needed winter gear. The main roads were perfectly passable, but not all the lanes were clear. About half of the stores were open, and we found what we needed. Walking along, I noticed a man emptying his kum-kum (electric water kettle) onto the sidewalk in front of his store. I realized in surprise that he was creating a clearing in front of his store by pouring boiling water on the snow!
On Tuesday, I was shopping in the grocery store when a middle-aged man came over and asked me if I spoke English. A thoughtful neighbor, he had offered to pick up some things at the grocery for an elderly woman who lives in his building. Although he spoke some English, he wasn’t fluent enough to translate “shifon,” rye, so he asked me to speak to the woman on the phone.
Some aftereffects of the storm can still be observed outside. Many piles of branches that did not survive the weight of the snow and had to be cut down lie on the streets. A nearby playground used to feature a canvascanopy held up by a tall pole in the middle of the playground. The snow pushed the entire canopy down onto the play equipment, and that hasn’t been fixed yet. Walking up the street, I also noticed that whatever machine had been used to push snow to the sides of the road seems to have also picked up some pieces of the sidewalk. Perhaps it was a bulldozer they used, as I heard that bulldozers were used to clear the streets in other locations!
So that’s my depiction of life lived through one of Yerushalayim’s rare snowstorms. Following are some other interesting vignettes:
The owner of Tambour(a hardware store) is probably still shaking his head with incredulity at the American woman who tried to buy a shovel for the snow! He surely has no idea that his was the third store in which she had tried to purchase a shovel, without success. In fact, some teenage boys had been spotted clearing their stairs using sponja sticks! A public staircase was cleared by some eager young boys, one of whom approached my husband asking him for a shekel for having cleared the stairs for him and saving him from slipping.
For nearly a week, my husband traipsed through the snow to the Mir, where learning continued on schedule, with close to full attendance. Onemerry teenager called out to him from the passenger seat of a passing car, “Sheleg sameach!” as the driver offered him a ride part of the way home.
One of the secretariesof a busy doctor’s office explained that they were open most of the days, despite the snow, but only one of the secretaries had to come in at a time, so she was enjoying the part-time vacation. Similarly, although bus number 72 was back in service by Monday afternoon, the driver certainly relished those few days off from work!
Not everyone was lucky enough to be able to relax and savor their days off with abandonment. The cook of Yeshivas Kol Torah, who is responsible for cooking the Shabbos food for hundreds of bachurim, had no way of getting to the yeshiva on erev Shabbos. The solution was to draft some of the yeshiva bachurim into kitchen duty. With the cook on the phone issuing instructions, the food was somehow prepared for Shabbos!
Aviva, the kitchen director of Peninim and two other seminaries, is responsible for coordinating meals for hundreds of girls and ensuring that the right amount of food is delivered to each seminary. On Friday morning, once all three seminaries had decided to keep their girls for an in-Shabbos, because travel would be virtually impossible, Aviva was forced to direct operations from her home in Ramat Beit Shemesh, because she could not make it to Yerushalayim. She recounted that, because of the difficulties in procuring basic food supplies, the need to improvise and make do without basics like milk made it feel like operating during war time!
These weren’t the only yeshivas or seminaries that couldn’t provide food in the normal manner for their students. In one small yeshiva, they did not manage to provide any food on motza’ei Shabbos, so the bachurim scoured the kitchen for food and found a bag of flour and some eggs. One of these bachurim was reported to have fried 90 pancakes using one electric burner and a small frying pan with which his mother had equipped him.
Although life has returned to normal, with sunny days and cold nights, any mention of the snow still brings a smile to the face of Israelis young and old. It was an experience not easily forgotten!
