The Columnist Manifesto

It's freakin' snowing in Jerusalem!

That's right. Big, wet, fluffy flakes, coming down for several hours and forming a sloppy, slushy accumulation of about an inch. The sidewalks, at least those paved with the smooth Jerusalem stones, became quite treacherous.

The snow is unusual, but not plague-of-locusts unusual. It happens about once a year, though usually the snow melts as soon as it hits the ground. Many Israelis seemed quite pleased with the snow -- at least the ones who weren't freaking out in their cars -- and I saw many grins and a few people throwing snowballs. Personally, I didn't care for weather in Jerusalem, even in December, to resemble February in New York City.

I was in the Old City when the snow began, shopping for scarves. I had left my camera behind, thinking it would be an impediment, as if I needed both hands free to deal with the shopkeepers. Rarely have I regretted the absence of my camera more. The sight of snowflakes wafting down narrow airshafts onto the sunwashed paving stones of the same streets where Jesus walked, was something I can barely describe and will always remember.


Snow on palm trees, YMCA, Jerusalem.

Why Jesus all of a sudden? The idea of a "white Christmas" is a relatively recent, northern European and North American association of ideas (made famous in song by the Jewish songwriter Irving Berlin). Even the traditional Christian portraits of Christ, which make him look more Danish than Judean, don't have snow in the background. So the incongruity of all this appeals to me.

I had thought of Christmas on this trip only by its absence. Last week, I was struck (though hardly surprised) by the fact that, with only a few shopping days until Christmas, the shopping malls in Israel didn't play Christmas music.

They did play a bit of Hanukkah music. Hanukkah is not a religiously important holiday in the Jewish calendar, but it's a fun holiday, and Israeli's observe it with a persistent but low key celebration. Occasional singing, and the common deployment of menorahs (called hanukkiot here, menorah being an ordinary 7-candle shabbat candelabrum). There was some nightly dancing by a gathering of haredi men at Dizengoff Circle in Tel Aviv. And of course the bakeries haul out the sufganiyot as a Hanukkah treat. But Hanukkah celebrating here has none of the totalitarian everywhereness of Christmas in the United States.


Hanukkiyah, Sheraton Tel Aviv lobby.

The YMCA, where I've been staying since Monday night, turns out to be a small enclave of Christianity in Jerusalem. They have a Christmas tree and, for the first time since I came to Israel, I was served bacon with breakfast. And lo and behold, this morning -- two days after Christmas -- they were playing Christmas carols in the breakfast room. I find many of the melodies of Christmas songs to be charming, even beautiful and moving, particularly if you don't listen to the words, and they were playing my favorite, Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.


Christmas tree, Jerusalem YMCA lobby.

I think I missed Christmas music this year, and in retrospect, even Christmas, which is observed in my household as a secular winter festival. How fitting to feel this way in this city of interwoven religious paradoxes. And now, of course, the snow.



Above: The fountain at Dizengoff Circle. Inthe background, a large hanukkiyah and the stage where a haredi singer/entertainer led the men in dancing. Below: hanukkiyah at a hummus restaurant.

Labels: travel