It was a condition of marriage that my husband learned to ski. Alas, despite four glorious schnapps-fuelled, snow-capped breaks away, he is yet to be moved by my favourite kind of winter escape. Not for everyone the mountain air, icy winds, vertiginous chair lifts, espressos at altitude, cumbersome equipment and layer upon layer of thermal apparel that all together just about breaks the bank, says he. So when my editor asked me to pen a piece on why Jews don't ski, I began to wonder if it really is something in the genes.

This Chanucah, the Not Overwhelmed by Skiing Husband (or NOSH) would much rather I had booked us a sojourn in Tenerife or someplace we could frolic in skimpy swimwear on a balmy beach, pina colada in hand and one lazy eye on whatever the kids were up to. He claims he craves warmer climes since they are the polar opposite of how our ancestors lived in the shtetls of Poland and Russia. The NOSH line is that we Jews come from peasant stock (although I hasten to add that is his side of the family) and therefore he is predisposed to bristle against any activity that involves the bitter cold and any form of queuing. In some ways, I am inclined to agree. Who really gets a kick from sub-zero temperatures, runny nose and numb toes, or the elbowing mob that swells at the start of the cable car you absolutely need to take at the end of the skiing day? Yet there is something oh-so-familiar about skiing culture.

All you ski aficionados out there know that the lure of skiing is feeling a sense of freedom as if you are on the top of the world, followed by an unbeatable adrenalin rush on a whiz downhill. No beach can give you that. But you don't have to ski hard or fast or even all day. It is exercise that isn't really exercise, isn't it? That is precisely why there are scores of mountainside pit-stops for a coffee (or a tipple) after a sedate amble down a blue run.

Then there is the food. Skiing fare is reassuringly stodgy and rich: soup and dumplings, meatballs and pasta, casseroles, steaks, crepes and platefuls upon platefuls of chips. No one calorie counts on the slopes because we're burning it off. Gluttony reigns supreme. Plus there is posing potential. The bubbela in all of us loves to wrap up warm and cosy against the cold. Meanwhile, there is huge scope for Temple Fortune's finest to wow in the style stakes on the slopes, togged out in designer snow-gear.

There is a seductive ski social scene. For all the time spent honing your carving technique or mastering short turns, twice as much time is spent on chair-lifts chatting. On childhood family ski holidays, my mum would more or less interview whoever she sat next to, give relationship and career advice and then relay the best life stories to us over a cheese fondue supper.

This year, I found myself doing the very same, unearthing some spectacularly First World Problems. So, while the NOSH prefers the accoutrements of après-ski, I plan to pursue my piste passion, with my intrepid sons in tow. The more I think about it, skiing at Chanucah is about as Jewish as you can get.