Snow on high ground

Only Jaffa and Jericho oranges were sold in Jerusalem when we were growing up. The city sits at quite a high altitude and therefore gets very cold in winter, while its air is dry throughout the year — not good for oranges, which need shelter and warmer temperatures!

We Jerusalemites are blessed, or not, depending whom you ask, with a central European kind of climate: distinctly hot summers and cold winters. Only in Jerusalem we had central heating at homes and in classrooms, a completely foreign notion to most people in other parts of the country. Driving into Jericho or to Tel Aviv, you felt like you had arrived in a tropical land: humid air, lush vegetation and kids with no winter coats. Our perk, though, was snow.