Published: 17 September 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
"WHO CARES IF THE government has called for a lockdown?" says 53-year-old Hila, sitting in a small coffee shop in a fashionable part of Jerusalem, her mask on the table beside her as she nibbles on cheese and crackers. "I'm still traumatised from Pesach, when my family stayed at home and my elderly mother was completely alone. We're not going through this again. This isn't the way to observe the holiday. This isn't the way to begin the new year."
The tables in the small shop are close to each other, and others join in the discussion.
"In the first lockdown, back in March, I didn't leave my home," says David, 45, who owns a small computer business. "My business almost went bankrupt.
"But now I ask, ‘what was it all for?’," David continues. "We really thought, that because we all stayed home, and because young people cared for older people, and stronger people took care of weaker people, we had beaten the virus. The numbers of the sick and the dead were so low, that we were an example for the entire world."
Itai, 36, chimes in: "The government blew it. They formed this ridiculously huge government to fight corona, but all the ministers do is play politics. They promised that fighting corona was their first, their only, priority – but they dealt with everything else except corona.
"And when they finally got around to dealing with it, they couldn't make professional decisions," he continues. "Everything that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu does is because of politics. So now it's too late. I don't know how we will ever get rid of this virus."
Merav, 49, smirks. "I guess we're supposed to be in lock down until the virus decides to let us come out, like children in time out. Only there are no responsible adults around," she says.
Although they participate freely and loudly in the conversation, none of the patrons want to give their full names. "I don't want the authorities to come and look for me," Hila explains. And based on discussions in the press and social media, they seem to be reflecting the prevailing feeling in the country.
The ministers promised that fighting corona was their first, their only, priority – but they dealt with everything else except corona.
Along with Hila, David says that he, too, intends to spend the holiday evening with his family. Merav and Itai say they are not sure – not because they think that the lockdown makes sense, but because they are afraid of being caught by the authorities and catching a NIS 500 ($A200) fine.
Shoshke, 68, laughs that her family has decided to celebrate the holiday a day earlier, and that last night, Thursday night, they would gather for the traditional meal.
"The whole thing is stupid," Shoshke says. "After all, if it's dangerous for us to leave our homes on Friday night for the holiday, then it's just as dangerous for us to leave our homes on Thursday night. It's all so arbitrary."
In May, 2020, as the country emerged from a near-total lockdown, Israel had one of the lowest per capita morbidity and mortality rates from Covid in the world, with a near-zero level of contagion. By late September, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, Israel had close to 47,000 active cases and 1,160 people had died from the virus.
And with an average of nearly 5,000 new cases per day, Israel has now earned the dubious double distinction of having the highest per capita rate of new cases per day and being the only country in the world to reimpose a full lockdown.
For over nine hours on Monday, September 14, the government met to consider its response to the pandemic. According to media reports, there was little discussion, and the decision to impose the lockdown was made in desperation, with a sense that even this draconian restriction may be too little too late to keep the virus from spreading.
If the lockdown was so urgent, why did the government decide to start it five days later? I guess this virus is supposed to know that it's supposed to shut down at 2pm on Friday, just like the rest of us.
Until the lockdown was scheduled to take effect, fully five days later, Israelis were supposed to continue to observe the restrictions that were ostensibly in effect – including maintaining social-distancing, avoiding large gatherings, and wearing masks despite the unseasonably hot weather – while schools, malls, retail stores, government ministries, and just about everything else was open.
"If the lockdown was so urgent, why did the government decide to start it five days later?" Merav asks rhetorically. "I guess this virus is supposed to know that it's supposed to shut down at 2pm on Friday, just like the rest of us."
Furthermore, the government has come up with a plan so complicated that few seem understand it, and answers provided by the health ministry's website do little to make it clearer. On social media, the explanations are being spoofed as hieroglyphics.
AT ITS MOST BASIC, the lockdown restricts everyone to a 500-metre radius from their homes – except for all the exceptions. Shopping for medicine, food or other essential services (which have yet to be defined) at a distance of greater than 500 metres is permitted.
Psychological, medical and alternative medical treatments are permitted (but a spokeswoman for the health ministry admitted on a talk show that she was not sure if a massage could be considered an essential alternative medical treatment).
It is permitted to go to the mikveh (ritual bath) but swimming pools are closed. It is also permitted to pray in a 10-person quorum or larger (but the number of people permitted has to be calculated according to a complex formula that includes the number of doors in the facility).
It is permitted to go farther than 500 metres to provide aid to an individual who is in physical or emotional need; but a family meal is not considered an emotional need, according to the spokeswoman.) It ss permitted to walk along the beach – but not to go into the water. It is permitted to for individuals to go for a run, walk, dog walk, or bicycle ride for a distance of more than 500 metres.
Some retail stores will be open - but not if they are located in malls. The outdoor market in Jerusalem (some of which is actually covered) was supposed to be closed, but the government bowed to pressure from the mayor and decided that it will remain open.
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Schools are closed, even though some parents have to go to work. And finally, based on rulings by the Supreme Court, weekly demonstrations, outside the prime minister's residence, with as many as 20,000 people will continue.
As Haviv Rettig Gur writes in the Times of Israel, "nearly every decision [with regard to the pandemic] for months has been made, then reversed, then reversed again in the wake of public pressure or complaints, whether it concerned closures of schools, fitness clubs, restaurants or swimming pools."
In its handling of the crisis, says Dr Yuval Feldman, a professor of legal research at Bar Ilan University and a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, the government has done everything wrong.
Feldman, whose research deals with obedience to the law and empirical and behavioural legal studies, tells The Jewish Independent, "it is as if the government took a 1.01 course on how to encourage compliance – and then decided to do everything in precisely the opposite way."
Kindergarten teachers, numerous restaurateurs, small beds and breakfasts and other facilities have announced that they have no intention of observing the lockdown. Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman called on the public not to obey the government’s zigzagging orders.
Mayors of two of the most virus-stricken cities in Israel travelled to Uman, Ukraine, to pray at the gravesite of a revered rabbi as they do every Rosh Hashanah, even though their cities’ residents were under nightly curfews even before the lockdown, and despite the objections of health officials.
While he says he deplores these behaviours, Feldman also says he is not surprised. "To ensure compliance,planning processes must be transparent and clear, and the public must be convinced that the decisions are based on neutrality and professionalism. Sadly, the government has not provided any of these," he says.
Even as the numbers of infected continued to climb, Feldman says that the government still had a chance to regain the public when in late July, it appointed a well-regarded, confident, and experienced hospital administrator, Dr Ronni Gamzu, to serve as the country's coronavirus czar.
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But then the government began to treat the virus with politics, rather than with medicine. When Gamzu tried to lock down towns and cities with the highest rates of infection, many of which are ultra-Orthodox, their leaders revolted and claimed that he was targeting them. Openly flaunting Gamzu's instructions, they attended huge weddings and other celebrations. When he tried to prevent tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox from travelling to Uman, they accused him of hating the religious because he himself is secular. They have gone anyway and now many are stuck at the border, prevented from crossing over.
Netanyahu, who is dependent on the ultra-Orthodox constituencies, caved into the pressure and allowed them to undermine Gamzu. While he virulently denounced the demonstrations against him, he never censured any of his own ministers as they populistically contradicted just about everything that Gamzu said.
Although Gamzu has insisted that Israel continue to ban most non-Israelis from entering the country since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government, in an apparent nod to US President Donald Trump and right-wing base, Netanyahu has agreed to provide visas to a large group of evangelical Christians so that they can come to Israel to help with the grape harvest in West Bank settlements.
"Once behaviour is seen as political rather than professional, compliance goes down. After all, why would anyone comply with rules that are based on partisan considerations rather than on the public good," Feldman says.
But the greatest tragedy of this pandemic, says Feldman, is the lack of social solidarity. "A crisis of this sort requires that we all make sacrifices for each other, because we believe in the public good. But the atmosphere in Israel now is one of tribal loyalties and severe distrust and even hatred between different groups, and the government has consistently used these divisions for its own purposes."
Feldman says that it is difficult to assess the actual level of compliance in Israel. "Are people wearing, or not wearing, masks? Are they having large parties in private homes? We can't know. But I do not think, contrary to what we read on social media, that all this has anything to do with the supposed Israeli 'nature’.
“There is nothing inherently wrong with the way Israelis behave – in fact, as we showed, the behaviour during the first lockdown was exemplary. That was because people believed in the lockdown and believed that the government was behaving responsibly and sensitively. Now, the majority of the public has lost its trust and confidence in the government. Under those circumstances, there would not be high compliance in any country."
READ MORE
Number of seriously ill virus patients surges as report points to excess deaths (Times of Israel)
While not explicitly attributing recent excess fatalities to COVID-19, Health Ministry says most of increase due to deaths among people above 65; record 551 in serious condition
Life beyond 500 metres: No schools, no malls but synagogues to remain open (Ynet)
Health Ministry publishes the final list of restrictions ahead of the nationwide lockdown, set to take effect on Friday; the public will only be allowed to leave home to buy groceries, medicine or receive medical or essential services
Tel Aviv bars rebrand as synagogues to protest virus lockdown rules (Times of Israel)
Some venue owners are fuming that new restrictions will force them to close, even as dozens are allowed to congregate at houses of worship
As lockdown set to begin, Rivlin apologises for leaders’ virus failures (Times of Israel)
In national address ahead of three-week closure, president urges government to regain public’s trust in fight against pandemic, warns it may not get another chance
Photo: Outdoor prayers in Jerusalem in early September (Ohad Zwigenberg)
