Waiting in Ariel

Yesterday I was in Ariel... waiting....

Ariel is thirty years old, like Shiloh. There were signs all over "Ariel Celebrating 30." But where Shiloh has close to 300 families, Ariel has thousands.

From day one, Ariel was planned as a "city," while Shiloh was planned as a.. a... I guess you could say that the original plan was for a large, friendly ..uhmm... neighborhood. "Slow controlled growth" were the bywords. Yes, a mistake. That's why Eli was planned, because Shiloh refused to be a city. Not that Eli is a city, but it's larger and has a totally different recruitment acceptance marketing policy.

Back to Ariel. Ron Nachman established a city in the Shomron which is nothing like any other YESHA community. First of all, religious Jews are a small minority. There are many non-Jews. Some are F-USSR immigrants who aren't Jewish and others are connected with his main donors, the evangelical Christians.

There is also Israel's fastest growing university. By traveling the new road, via Rechallim, the college is just about ten minutes from Shiloh. The easiest way of traveling between Shiloh and the "coastal plain" is via Ariel. You can be in Petach Tikva in just over half an hour, the Yarkon Junction in 30 minutes. Yes, it's no further than Jerusalem.

Yesterday I was in Ariel to get to a family simcha, a brit (circumcision) in Kfar Saba.
I was able to wait calmly, seated at the bus stop, since I knew that a ride was coming for me. But I could have either taken a bus (and then another bus or two) or waited for a ride or two or three.

And then, later, I was there again as the sun set and we waited for a ride home. That's where I took this gorgeous picture. The clouds were strangely winter-like.