The Real Jerusalem Day

As anyone who watched any news to day either national Israeli or international, including the BBC and CNN, you will have seen that Israel had some snow today.
The amount of snow amounted to about less than 5 inches, but resulted in schools being closed, public transport being stopped and other chaos causing decisions.

I tried to work at home, but due to PC problems, I had to go into the office, but the taxi company would not send a cab to my house, because of the weather! (Eventually I was able to get in, get the PC problem fixed so I can work at home tomorrow if the same thing happens)

What does result in a snow day is that the focus of Southern Israel (and anywhere close that does not have snow) is Jerusalem. Whilst driving to work we passed bus loads of people, cars parked all next to one of the main parks to take part in the annual snowman competition.They come from all over the country (on the way home again we passed a truck with logos from the Ashdod port on it)

Winograd was released today. The report on the state of the war, a criticism of the policies and handling of the war(I will write more about that once I have read more) although the main story of the day was the snow.

So, my point is this:

Yom Yerushalayim celebrates the unification of Jerusalem, which, under current political plans may be un-unified, and relatively few people from outside the city come to celebrate the festival.

It's not a day off; it's not a public holiday. No special dispensation is given to this day. Anyone who wants to celebrate it has to take one of their personal vacation days to come and join in the joyous occasion.
Today, on a day with horrible weather, when schools are cancelled, when public transport is suspended, and getting to work is next-to impossible, they come from all over the south – religious, irreligious, families, groups, friends – they all come to Jerusalem to celebrate the snow.

The biggest bigwig comes to town

As Bigwigs go, they don't come much bigger than this. W arrives in Jerusalem later this week.
There are American flags going up all over the city. An article in the Jerusalem Post outlines the routine at the King David -- including how the staff are not allowed to leave the hotel for the duration of the visit.

According to this article by the Associated Press Jerusalem has spent nearly $400,000 for this visit

I realise that I should see this as an honour that he is coming, but even now, when you call the city council hotline (106) they cannot tell you which roads will and will not be open. The only one which is for certain closed is King David street. I look forward to the chaos of getting to work, but as Ritz, from the King David hotel echoes the thoughts of everyone in the city -""There will be complete gridlock on the roads of Jerusalem,"

Hail to the Chief!

Hirchson - the full story

Friday's Haaretz Magazine has a story by Gidi Weitz which outlines the full extent, as discovered by Haaretz and based on testimonies from police statements and other interviews, outline a fantastic, (and if he had not been caught and the facts proven, the word could be taken literally) story of him using a whole network of people to carry out his embezzlement of 2.5 million shekel from the National Workers Federation (NWF).

This included
"NIS 1.2 million for permanent monthly "expenses," between NIS 600,000 and NIS 750,000 for trips abroad, NIS 160,000 as "holiday grants," NIS 115,000 for meals in restaurants and in the Knesset cafeteria, NIS 72,000 for medicines and NIS 30,000 to host members of the Likud Central Committee. The investigators also suspect that the NWF financed Hirchson's campaigns in the Likud primaries of 1998 and 2002 to the tune of NIS 600,000."

If you thought that the scandal of our prime minister and bank leumi were over, then an article, also in Haaretz stated that not only is the case still open, but they are awaiting on the results of another case involving the Dimona Silica Industries by the ministry of trade, when he was the minister.

Will this end ?