Autumn comes not to the desert

October 5, 2006 - 8:54 PM by Sarah

With the holiday of Sukkot coming up, WestBankMama waxes nostalgic about the “one thing she misses about America”:

Sukkot for me in America meant heavy wooden walls, and pine branches complete with sticky sap as materials for the schach (thatch-like natural roofing for the hut). It meant sharply cold evenings – I more than once had to sit at the holiday meal in my winter coat. It meant the heavenly smell of wood smoke if a neighbor had a fire going in their fireplace. And most of all, it meant the glorious view of the changing leaves all around. I grew up in Upstate New York, and the beginning of October was my favorite time of year. For those of you who have never seen it, the colors of the trees in the northeast of America in the fall are spectacular. It is honestly the only thing I dearly miss about not living in America (except for a few dear friends, of course). In short, Sukkot meant autumn for me in America.

Sukkot here in Israel means cloth walls, bamboo schach, and the heat. Occasionally we get rain on Sukkot here, but more often we get the sharav winds (hot, eastern winds with the dust of the desert). Sometimes the evenings are beautifully cool, with the need of just a light sweater. But the overall feeling is still of summer. There really is no autumn in Israel. There is spring with wildflowers, summer, and then bam! the winter rains come.

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