Until recently, she was a senior candidate for the world's most successful country title. Beautiful people, a wealthy little country, free education from zero to doctorate, a generous welfare state that has succeeded in growing a huge corporation and a peaceful and peaceful society. The attitude of Swedish residents for years was like winning the lottery by the very place where they were born. We all looked pretty jealously of the rich, educated, and progressive white country. 

Then came the ultimate moral test that fell like a thunderstorm on a world day with the Corona. A definite decision that every human society had to make, between the elderly, the sick and the vulnerable, and the young and the economy. Most countries in the world chose the elderly, Sweden chose the economy. As of this writing, in the 10 million country, 4,659 have died from Corona. And together with them - ironically or logically - also a difficult economic problem. The question is, how did this happen? What leads such a progressive and humanistic society, at least in theory, to such a situation?

One explanation may be found in the most popular Swedish book in the world, and my personal favorite, too - the IKEA catalog. What is the message of this book? Does he not preach almost every page of his eternal youth? Endless monotony? The addictive feeling of new-new-new? In the IKEA catalog you will not find people like your grandparents, but you will find out how you can live in a 30 meter house with yourself.

The IKEA catalog is just one example. The most popular Swedish children's book reveals another part of the story. "Bilby Knee Stocking" is an empowerment book that I would recommend for any parent to call their daughters. Bilby lives alone in a horse and monkey company and calls for radical freedom - which is only interrupted by the guilt of old-fashioned and oppressive adults. In this "adult Utopia", it is not surprising that Sweden is the world's highest proportion of people living alone in the same human storage units marketed in IKEA.

Sweden is also one of the secular countries in the world. From this angle, it is interesting to look at Sweden's response: While most scientists in the world have said with proper scientific modesty "We do not know", Sweden have said that they are actually taking control of the virus with the help of their experts. This approach is reminiscent of Israeli secular admiral Yuval Noah Harari's assertion that humanity has long overpowered epidemics.

But what is the connection between this kind of arrogant secularism to the neglect of the elderly? Here is the place to mention the "Lonely Old Virus"; The interesting point is that there is a disturbing balance between the level of religiosity and Westernism in the rate of neglect of the elderly: Take Israel, for example: In Haredi and Arab societies they have not heard of the problem, and elders are the family and community. traditional less, and in secular Tel Aviv and the West will find thousands of elderly individuals. increase in hospitalization rates elders during the holidays is the most extreme example of this phenomenon.

virus elderly individual is a direct result of Western liberalism. culture that sanctifies young and disposable, economics uninhibited (and in this sense social democracy Swedish and American capitalism are two sides of the same coin) and individualism, leads to carelessness towards the unprofitable old people, destined to scourge in the world that belongs to young people, 

all talking about the lesson the ultra-Orthodox have to learn from the Corona. Do their exhibitors in Israel learn from the Corona? 

So, after the word sovereignty (national sovereignty) has come to Europe for a comeback after a good few years in the archive of Politically Correct, what about words like tradition, belonging, loyalty and family? A company that resists such values ​​is a company that, in truth, abandons their representatives, the weak old. When I see Sweden's dealings with the Corona I am proud to live in our traditional and Levantine society, which has almost automatically chosen the weak and old. Israel is a company that is constantly concerned with the need to balance individual rights and family values, while remembering the imperative "and the exclusion of an old man."

Here too, there is a central group that sees the Western secular cosmopolitan as an indispensable role model - and everything else as primitive and dark. A lot of them sound like preaching a full return to routine, without realizing that it might mean abandoning the elderly. The Israeli balance, rooted in us from an ancient Jewish tradition, is a model for the entire world.

Adv. Ofir Tubol is the founder of the Golden Age movement