Yali Sobol and Rea Mochiach-Snow

Tel Aviv is again covered in snow
Couples are skating on the Yarkon
Children are playing on the boardwalk
Sculpting with ice a castle
Sidewalks are spread with salt
The city snow plowers are broken
I am standing by the little window
Looking at backyards

Snow in Tel Aviv, not to mention snow in Israel, was always a fantasy. It was something you dreamed of when you were a kid watching American television. Up until last week we weren't even sure that a regular rainy winter would arrive, making it a bit (just a bit) hard to enjoy the warm and sunny weekends. To say the truth, I found last week's reports on the approaching storm too dramatic-okay, so there will be a lot of rain and maybe some snow in Jerusalem, you'd think this was a hurricane...But then the rain came and with it the heavy snow in Jerusalem and the North and it was clear that this wasn't a regular winter storm and it was actually much worse than expected. It's quite shocking that there are still 20,000 households without electricity since Thursday and that Jerusalem is still besieged by the snow (update: the main highway to the city just reopened a short while ago for public transportation). I woke up yesterday morning to discover that there was a power outage but thankfully it only lasted for about an hour-I can't even begin to imagine what 3 days without power in the freezing cold feels like, especially when it comes by surprise. And yet, the snow is so beautiful and these photographs of snowy Jerusalem are stunning. It's as if the white blankets all the dirt and troubles, even the massive news coverage is comforting, "What did the news talk about before the snow?" a friend asks. In Tel Aviv we didn't have any snow but we did have a dramatic hailstorm and for a short while cars and roofs were covered in white. I had to get to work and had no choice but to take a taxi. The driver, an elderly Russian man, was silent and we both stared at the icy roads and remains of hail, well aware that it was a special moment. When I got out of work of course everything vanished as if it had been a dream.
This song opens Yali Sobol and Rea Mochiach's album "El Dorado". I think it's one of the last albums I bought, from a friendly cd store that no longer exists, in a town I no longer live in. I love how it sets the tone of the album and I was so happy to see that someone finally uploaded it to youtube yesterday. The album is made up of little stories and the next one is this gem 'Approaching Tel Aviv' which captures the exact feelings of greeting a loved one from the airport, after he or she has acquired a world of new experiences and in a way beginning together a fresh page, leaving behind everything that had happened before. Yali, the son of playwright and director Yehoshua Sobol, is also a composer and novelist but best known as the vocalist for Monica Sex. The band just released the clip for their latest single "Again descends a grey khaki light" and I love how it makes a simple get-together with close friends for a picnic by the Yarkon so magical and nostalgic. Rae Mociach is best known as Berry Sakharof's musical partner, from the breakthrough 'Signs of Weakness' which he produced to 'Adumey HaSefatot' in which the two gave a new interpretation to poems by Ibn Gabirol. He's also the head of 'OrchestRea' and a very talented producer, which I think especially comes to play here with his album which he produced and arranged, and specifically with this song. I love how there's something magical and temporary about it, just like the snowy weekend-in a few days everything will go back to "normal" and we'll have something else to endlessly talk about.