Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Leon addressed the city's response to this week's rare snow storm in a special interview at the new Arutz Sheva studio in Jerusalem Thursday.
"We are in the midst of a positive event of snow, a happy event, and that is how we are treating it. At the municipality we took it very seriously, and now, after a few days of preparation, we are happy to see Jerusalemites and visitors from all over the country," Leon says.
He added: “I treated it as an operation along with the city leadership and the management team. I saw before my eyes what is happening abroad, where a snow day is treated as a normal day, as if it were raining. I told myself that this is how it should be in Jerusalem as well. This morning it was possible to see the sides of the road full of snow, but the roads themselves are clear, which made it possible to open the educational institutions, in accordance with the limitations of the coronavirus regulations."
The preparations for the snowstorm included last-minute deliberations with meteorologists in case there was a change in the weather forecast. "We worked on it seriously with a team of forecasters who gave us the exact hours when the snow is expected. It is not always one hundred percent but they were accurate this time and it may have snowed a little more than they predicted."
Turning to the battle against the coronavirus in Jerusalem, Leon says: "For a whole year we have been under the shadow of the coronavirus and have become experts in mapד, traffic lights and the virus. I feel we are nearing the end. We understand this in the municipality. Tonight it will be in the Slonim compound in Mea Shearim, tomorrow with the Belz Hasidim, on Monday in the Mahane Yehuda Market and tomorrow at the Damascus Gate for the residents of the east of the city."