A survey I conducted this week on my own behalf revealed a statistic that would have surprised us three years ago: 85% pressed "yes" when asked if they missed COVID-100, that famous epidemic, the kind of which only occurs once every <> years.
Lapid held a discussion on preparedness for winter morbidity: "We are in a very good situation" // - Video: Omer Meron /GPO, Sound: Ben Peretz /GPO
More than 1,200 people on Facebook and Instagram admitted in the midst of a bloody Hanukkah that had they been given the choice, they would have preferred an escapism of breathing and non-breathing lockdowns, a daily count of the number of deaths in the pandemic instead of deaths in war, of sick people instead of abductees, of carriers instead of wounded. We thought then that the end of the world had come, and here's what we discovered – that even on the Sufi scale there is last but not least.
In Corona there was no cinema due to exponential concern, there was no economic activity, and real estate faltered; Now city centers are bustling, grants for the self-employed are limited in advance, and in the Cameri Theater the hall is filled with the excellent play "Love and Plague" (I wonder in what crisis they will present a play about iron swords).
Three completely different, yet equally moving and funny love stories take place in a Corona motel. The public recalls with nostalgia.
From: Love and Plague, The Cameri Theater, Photo: Reddy Rubinstein
The hotels that contained the virus carriers in 2020 never dreamed of the size of the project that would land on them in 2023, and the hotels that then watched from the sidelines did not imagine that one day they too would enter the statistics of hotels that host wholesale, this time mercenary evacuees from various fronts.
Many families have already closed the connecting door, rented an alternative apartment, and realized that it would be better to enroll their children in new educational institutions where the routine is relatively ongoing, so as not to deal with educational side effects such as those caused by the pandemic. Who would have thought that the coronavirus was just a siren experiment, and that we would miss this siren experiment.
Like then
In that siren experiment there was anger at the government - because why are they locking down when London realised it wasn't really needed (Boris Johnson gives his regards and asks if we have a shield for him).
Even then, there were dramatic declarations at 8 p.m., with false promises that things would be okay - during the coronavirus it was expressed in an economic crash and in the grants we returned, during the war Netanyahu quoted that revenge for a small child was not created by Satan, only forgot to mention that Big Brother from America is setting the policy.
We survived the Corona period financially successfully, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
The only positive thing about the coronavirus was the momentary illusion that all Israelis, regardless of religion, race or gender, have a common enemy. Even when driving on Judea and Samaria roads, there is nothing to fear from an attack, because on both sides of the barricade they are mainly afraid of being infected.
It was an illusion, because the vaccination stations in the Arab municipalities were empty most of the time for a variety of reasons, and because under Bennett's government the Palestinian Authority canceled an agreement with Pfizer after Israel demanded not to transfer vaccines to Gaza, but we are a backbone country when it comes to external hatred, or if you will: romantic.
For wars at home, on the other hand, we are always prepared.
Orit Struk spoke about the pensions of senior executives who, at least at the age of 45, retire home with a huge grant and a stunning pension, and can continue on to the next job. She didn't steal from anyone, but it's easy to pump on "Orit Strock's coalition funds." Her children, sons-in-law and grandchildren also serve in the IDF. Why devour her instead of developing a substantive discussion?
Whose kidney is this
A Breaking the Silence patrol in Mount Hebron encountered the commander of the Mount Hebron sector, a uniformed Major whose mother was murdered in Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha on 7 October. The Breaking the Silence, who briefed foreign journalists, said he shared the major's grief but refused to shake his hand, claiming he was harassing Palestinians.
Breaking the Silence in Hebron (Archive), photo: Miriam Tzachi
Our children are fighting even though it is already clear that the government is unable to formulate a strategy to ensure that their younger siblings do not have to fight again in the very same strip. There is no longer an illusion of victory, perhaps of temporary security.
The value that takes center stage is unity. But the sector wars are slipping into the most hidden fissures. La'Isha magazine published an article about a high-tech woman in Tel Aviv who followed in the footsteps of her brother and partner and donated a kidney, "in order to show that secular women also contribute altruistically."
Alongside the important encouragement to donate, it is hard to ignore the position of secularism in Tel Aviv as a defiance of the statistics dominated by the religious sector, as if it were competition.
Sector belonging is irrelevant to me, in fact, in any area of life, it would also be a shame to turn kidney donation into something to fight about. But it's a shame that only those who know the interviewee from her years in Bnei Akiva or from the community in Samaria where she lived until recently, will wonder why they recruit a presenter from a religious home for an article that shows "contributions in the secular sector," at a time when we thought the schism had been exhausted.
The brother who donated a kidney and is decorated with a citation from the Second Lebanon War is also a graduate of my husband's preparatory school. You don't have to count kippahs, but you also don't have to enlist their absence in the campaign, when that's not exactly the case.
Brothers in Arms protest, photo: Liron Moldovan
What is the lesson? Don't butt. Just as Netanyahu loses when he denigrates Oslo, an agreement he himself maintained long after Rabin was assassinated. Netanyahu could have abolished Oslo many times, but he embraced Oslo more than any leftist leader.
If "brothers in arms" had said it loud and clear, perhaps the bereaved families would have been less affected. But they decided to respond to Bibi's campaign with a counter-campaign, in which they used the names of the murdered and the fallen. It's hard for me to believe that the bereaved brothers who "brothers in arms" blocked on Twitter are satisfied with Netanyahu, but the wars of the left and right were supposed to develop into substantive issues, and not return to the "yes Bibi, no Bibi" swamp that keeps him and us in the same place.
We're all in the same boat, self-hatred was supposed to be murdered on October 7, it's not clear how it's still here.
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