Thursday, December 28, 2006

The milder climate



For my cousin in Neve Ne'eman, for instance, Shiloh's climate is cold, but compared to neighboring Ofra and Beit El, it's much milder. The pictures click to see were taken early in the morning in Shiloh. By the time I went to work at 1pm, there was no sign at all of snow.

But then just south of Shiloh near Ofra the fields near the road still had snow. OK, not quite the blizzards I remember from New York, or even the years when Jerusalem and Shiloh were really snowed in, but there was snow.

The pictures here were taken as I walked to the yeshiva where I teach. Even when I finished work a few hours later, there was still snow on the ground.

During our first winter here, 25 years ago, our eldest was going to school in Ofra. All the big kids from Shiloh would wait at the corner for the van to pick them up. Yes, a van was all that was needed; there weren't all that many big kids. One rainy winter's day nothing arrived, and they waited and waited. We didn't have phones then, but finally a walkie-talkie was used to contact Ofra.

"Why haven't the kids been picked up?"

"What do you mean snow? It's not snowing here in Shiloh!"

Yes, that's when I learned that Shiloh has a milder climate. Great in theory, but I'm still cold! Waiting an hour in Beit El for a ride certainly didn't help!


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