SNOW at last!

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(All photos can be enlarged with a click and then another click.)

"Shalom and welcome! I'm the banana-mouthed snowman of Dina's village in the Jerusalem Hills!"

YES,  SNOW!!
For the first time in five years, our moshav woke up to a white winter wonderland.

Here's the other side of my street.

This is the first and only time I saw chains on a car wheel in Israel.
Wait a minute--are those paperclips??

In the foreground is my yard; on the far horizon to the right, Jerusalem sits in a cloud of its own snow.

By late morning the temperature was rising to above freezing and wet snow started sliding off trees onto my neck.   brrr!

The sun came out for a few minutes and I saw some blue sky for the first time this week.

Oops.  Who's got a chainsaw to open the path?

The red geranium didn't know what hit it.

Nor did the ktalav, the Eastern Strawberry tree.

The olive trees were straining under the weight of wet snow.

The green grass of winter looked so bright in the sunlight.

After 2.5 hours of picture-taking I came home and the precipitation was already becoming  more like rain.
But Jerusalem was again visible across the valley.
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It was impossible for me to get into the city because the buses stopped running.
But you can see Jerusalem snow pictures in the newspapers:
The Times of Israel
Jerusalem Post
And about the weather damage all over the country:  Ynet
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My street

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My street is narrow, cracked,  and boring and has no sidewalk.
Like all the streets in our small  moshav on the hill.
No one of the poor new immigrants who started the village  had a car back then in 1949. 

Today it is a tight squeeze when cars  meet the infrequent bus;  often one of them has to pull over or even back up.

Once in a great while horseback riders come clip-clopping down the street, who knows from where. 

The best thing about my street is the view from it.
Look out across the valley and see Jerusalem on the horizon!
Look in every direction and see the forested Jerusalem Hills.
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To see how other City Daily Photo bloggers presented "My Street" for the December 1st theme day, visit the group's nice new portal.
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UPDATE: I added some links if you want to see more in and around the village.
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Jerusalem as target

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The air raid sirens went off in my village, and in Jerusalem, and in her surrounding communities late this afternoon--for the first time!

Very surprising and very scary.

This is how the Muslims in Gaza show their love for the city they call holy, Al Kuds, by firing missiles at it??  

The missiles landed short of the city, thank God, in an open area.  Some say in Gush Etzion.

Some friends in my moshav heard a few booms.

So it is not only southern Israel and Tel Aviv, now we too are in range of Hamas. 

Shabbat shalom, in spite of the situation.   

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Getting a Pullet Surprise

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Look at the size of this chicken egg!
(A normal L size egg is on its right.)

I hard boiled it and what did I get?
A pullet surprise!

The veteran moshavnik in our village grocery explained that this abnormality can happen when a pullet (a young hen) is still a bit confused about this egg laying business.

Or, as Wikipedia explains it in big words, "Double-yolk eggs occur when ovulation occurs too rapidly, or when one yolk becomes joined with another yolk. These eggs may be the result of a young hen's reproductive cycle not yet being synchronized."

Once every household in this moshav ( [former] collective agricultural settlement) was required by the State to have a big hen house for egg production, like the one shown above.
Recently times have changed and this is no longer the case.
When I moved to this village in 2006 about a dozen were still functioning (albeit with foreign workers, not Israelis, doing the work).
Now there are just a handful of loolim, chicken runs.

And the ridiculous thing is that Tnuva Food Industries now has to import eggs from Turkey and other countries.
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(This post, worthy of a Pulitzer Prize, is for Camera-Critters.)
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Did you say woodpeckers?!

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Every winter, with the first rain, my little old house in the hills gets Internet connectivity problems and my phone often dies for days or weeks.
Whether this may have played a hand in Google's lock-down on my blog for a week I don't know.
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But I know I was over-joyed to find this telephone infrastructure man out on the street a few days ago!

Bless his heart, Yossi was patient with all my questions and picture-taking.
He worked for hours out in the cold.
The Bezeq man replaced the old cables on the two wooden poles nearest my house.

Yossi showed me how the cables were full of holes.
Can you believe?! He said woodpeckers made the holes, thinking the cables were the commonly used black drip irrigation tubes!
The birds were hoping to get a drink of water!
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Well, it made good fodder for the blog, this story, but I am still waiting for my telephone to work properly.
Thank you Yossi, you tried, and I appreciate your dedication.
Now it's time to wait for another Bezeq technician, but from a different department.
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(This is not a grand tour but it has been very much "my world" these past weeks, so I will add it to Our World Tuesday meme.)

Doors of the Torah ark

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For Monday Doorways let's focus on the doors of the Torah ark in the synagogue.

After two scrolls were taken out of the aron kodesh (the "holy ark"), the parochet (curtain) was again closed.
Enlarge the top picture and you can see the bar mitsvah boy holding a silver yad (pointer) and chanting his Torah portion.

At the end of the readings, the wooden cases of the scrolls are closed.
The parochet is drawn to the side, then the wooden holy ark doors are opened.

The scrolls are carefully put inside the ark while prayers are sung.
Then the doors and the curtain are closed.
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Mazal tov to my young neighbor, the bar mitsvah boy!
He did well and made us proud.
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This indoor tour can be for Our World Tuesday too.

Lots more posts about the Torah here.
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Let go of your rain, clouds!

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The Jerusalem Hills (aka the Hills of Judea) had heavy skies all day but just now, at 5 pm, the clouds are giving their rain.

That's my village on the hill.

"Hilltop" and "Judea" might make you think of "West Bank settlement," but no--my moshav (founded in 1949) is inside the Green Line, in Israel proper.

The wadi leading to the spring at the foot of my moshav (village) is now bare, charred, and stoney.
After last year's forest fire the Keren Kayemet/ JNF forestry guys took down all the dead burned trees.

Let's see what new natural growth comes up with the winter rains now starting.
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This post is for SkyWatch Friday.
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The place just right

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My little village on the hill, beneath a big sky.
As seen from the valley below, where I often go walking toward evening, meeting only jackals on the way.
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For SkyWatch Friday.
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Big moon emerging

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Come on moon, you can do it!
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The moon was just rising at 8:00 tonight from behind the two mountains where our closest neighbor moshavim (villages) are.
It gave enough light for me to see the empty road for my walk in the cool of the evening.
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Happy SkyWatch Friday.
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A rare mitzvah, with great festivity

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My village had a simcha, a joyous event, a few weeks ago.
See? It even says so on the van:
simcha -- joy, emuna -- faith, osher -- happiness
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The van drove slowly through the moshav, its loudspeakers blasting ecstatic religious songs, and parked at my neighbor's.
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A new Torah scroll was going to be dedicated!
My neighbor had paid (a lot!) to have it made and to have a scribe write it.
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Many gathered on their patio for refreshments.
The men entered the house for afternoon prayers and to see the final letters of the Torah penned.
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Then the sefer Torah was brought out under a canopy (like in a wedding) and there was dancing and singing in the street!

The procession began, headed by the lights and music of another van.
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The source of this custom is the Biblical book II Samuel 6:12-15:
"And David went and brought up the ark of God … into the City of David with joy.... And David danced with all his might before God.... And David and all the House of Israel brought up the ark of God with shouts and with the sound of the shofar [ram's horn]."

You can see Jerusalem on the hill, on the top left of the photo.
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We snaked through the streets of the village (population about 80 families).
More and more people came out to join in the festivities.
Many men were given the honor of carrying the Torah, which was decorated with scarves.
Women threw candies on the crowd, to the delight of the children.

The parade stopped near the synagogue.
All the scrolls came out from the synagogue to welcome the new Torah.

There must have been almost a dozen.
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A Chabad page says that
"As the procession approaches the synagogue, the chazzan (cantor) approachs the Holy Ark and proclaims:

'Torah scrolls, on behalf of the holy congregation that prays in this synagogue, you are requested to come and greet the Torah that ____ son/daughter of ____ has merited to write and dedicate at an auspicious hour to this synagogue.' "

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Then everyone stood still and the appropriate prayers were said.

The scrolls returned to the Ark and made room for their new neighbor.
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The men prayed the evening service.
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Like other mitzvah events, the dedication of a Torah is followed by a mitzvah meal.
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Our seudat mitzvah took place at the moshav's community hall, Beit HaAm.
I tasted kubbeh soup, a rich broth with meat-stuffed dumplings and vegetables, for the first time.
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It was one of those nights when you feel really happy to be Jewish and to be living in a friendly little moshav in the Jerusalem Hills.
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Good-bye trees, thanks guys

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Having just missed the infrequent bus to my village yesterday, I started the 35-minute walk home along the road.
But what's this?!
Almost all the trees, albeit dead trees, along the right side of the road had been cut down!
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Then I saw the sign:

CAUTION !
KKL [Keren Kayemet LeYisrael] is thinning out the forest in this area
in order to create firebreaks and to keep the forest healthy.
You can call us at 02-6204672.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
KKL, Mountain Region
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Carefully I looked over the steep and now bare slope.
Down below, a man was attaching a rope or chain to the log so he could skid it out with the tractor. (Click on the photo to find him.)

Others were cutting down tall pines, sawing them up into smaller lengths, stacking them and getting them ready to load on trailers, boiling a pot of coffee . . . .
I felt a tinge of envy . . . .

Last July a forest fire killed these trees in the valley.
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That's my moshav (village) in the photo.
The only road out of our village was closed, with fires burning on both sides of the road.
The fire was stopped at the very gate of our village, thank God.
It was a scary time watching the flames come nearer.
There was no way for the fire trucks to get down into the valley, and the few small planes could not work fast enough.
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That is why I am so glad that the wake-up call is being heeded now.
Keren Kayemet-Jewish National Fund is on the job, bless them.
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And I did, I called the telephone number on the sign, and said a big thank-you.
Even got to speak to the head Forester of the Mountain Region, Eli Yaakov.
He said "Before new trees can grow, the burnt ones must be cut down."
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Let us hope and pray the new trees will never feel the pain of a forest fire.
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Down to earth again

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OK, the holidays are over.
It's back to everyday life.
So for That's My World and ABC Wednesday O-day, let's observe my ecology-minded neighbor's new OUTHOUSE.
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Actually, it is a really nice composting toilet.
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All you have to do is sprinkle some sawdust.
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When the container is ready to be emptied, it can be pulled out through this little back door.
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I should add that the neighbor also has a normal house with conventional plumbing, but this little outhouse is good for visitors.
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It is clean and OK-smelling, nothing like the pit latrines I've seen in my travels. This one is not a pit at all.
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But speaking of pits, I just have to say this well-known expression from the Talmud:
in Aramaic it is מאגרא רמא לבירא עמיקתא Me-igara rama lebeyra amiqta.
Literally:
From a high rooftop to a deep pit.
Meaning:
A person lost his former greatness and got into deep, uh . . . , trouble.
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Well-stacked

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Tonight Israel moves the clock forward and begins "Summer Time."
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The post-sunset colors, like these for SkyWatch Friday, will be later in coming.
And that's fine with me.
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But who stacked up those concrete barriers on top of our hill?
Modern sculpture it's NOT.
Maybe one night a giant came up to play with his set of giant Duplo or Lego blocks?
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Happy Kalevala Day

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To our Finnish friends let me say, happy Kalevalan päivä, suomalaisen kulttuurin päivä.
February 28 is the day of the Finnish national epic and Finnish culture.

I just happen to own a copy of that national epic, the Kalevala. (Even though I don't know the language.)
The folk material was compiled by Dr. Elias Lönnrot and was written down, for the first time, in 1830.
The book was published for the first time on this day in 1835.
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Prior to that, it was all sung and kept active in the oral tradition.
Typically, two singers would link arms, face to face across a table, and sing to each other, challenging to see who knew more verses.

As explained in an earlier post, the Jerusalem Hills has a nice moshav (village) called Yad Hashmona that was founded by Finnish Christians.
The name means a memorial for the eight, in remembrance of the eight Finnish Jews who were surrendered to the Nazis.

It is very moving to read how the Yad Hashmona website explains that.
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They have built a wonderful Biblical Garden that Israelis and tourists can visit.

The sign you see is glass, with the sky and clouds NOT reflected but showing through.

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The view over the Jerusalem Hills (or Hills of Judea) goes on forever.

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BTW, both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien drew from the Kalevala in their own works.

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And this was our tour for That's My World. Shalom!

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