In the video: A sinkhole opens on Ibn Gvirol Street in Tel Aviv (Photo: Yotam Ronan, Avshalom Sashoni, Maariv)
The Hebrew Language Academy can be satisfied: the results of the open vote for the word of the year - a favorite custom borrowed from foreign bodies - are wonderfully successful.
sinkhole
A depression that opens suddenly in the ground, as defined by the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
A big pit suddenly, in the middle of life.
It is not a new word, not too commonly used, and not even such a significant word in the news chronicle, but it is the most accurate metaphor for the national mood at the end of 2022, and for the deepest fear of all of us.
In other words: no wonder the Israelis chose Bolan as their word of the year.
After all, the ground falls under their feet, opens its mouth and swallows everything that seemed stable and permanent.
A sinkhole that opened on a road in the Dead Sea region, 2015 (photo: Tamar Azouit Council)
A sinkhole is first of all a natural phenomenon that endangers humans.
A large and deep hole has formed in what a moment ago seemed to be a road or stable ground, threatening to take with it everything that fell into the environment.
But nature doesn't act this way for nothing: the hand of man, usually, played there first.
This is the case, for example, in the Dead Sea region: it is agreed that reducing the flow of Jordan water into the sea, along with industrial activity in the region, are among the factors that led to the drop in the level of the Dead Sea.
This is followed by groundwater that dissolves the underground salt layers, which leads to the formation of the sinkholes.
Thousands of sinkholes have opened in this area in recent decades, changing the face of the landscape, destroying the roads, harming economic activity in the area, and endangering human lives.
As with the major Israeli problems, it only seems that they are limited to a certain area of land.
A series of potholes have been opened in recent years in large cities in the center, at a pool party in Kermi Yosef that ended in disaster, in the middle of the Ayalon lanes, and just this week, within a few hours, four potholes were opened in Tel Aviv.
In some cases, connections between works done in the area and the formation of the pits were examined.
So it doesn't matter if you are vacationing in Ein Gedi or walking on Ibn Gvirol Street in Tel Aviv: the ground trembles beneath us, and there is no way to know when it will betray you and pull you down.
And in such an anxious country, the sinkhole is a metaphor for any daily threat that may suddenly destroy your life.
It is impossible to know where the blow will come from, only to be convinced that it will come.
Every random stabbing on the street, every speeding scooter, every violent incident in an environment that is supposed to be as protected as possible - these are all possible sinkholes, and we're just crossing our fingers and praying that when the ground collapses - we'll be at least a few centimeters away.
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And there are other sinkholes, economic and social and political.
After the Corona years that shut down entire industries, the price increase that erodes what is left of the middle class, the housing crisis that has been going on for years is only getting worse, poverty, violence, neglect.
In other words, the intuitive Israeli feeling in the third decade of the 21st century is that there is no chance of reaching safe ground.
This is also the case on the political level, with the succession of election campaigns, the most real expression of the general instability, drained into the establishment of a radical government - support it or oppose it, it doesn't matter - which aims to change from end to end the arrangements that have been in place for many years.
For many publics it arouses anxiety and heavy concerns, to the point of pondering the question of whether this country is still safe for them.
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It is tempting to think in this context about the first important formation of a sinkhole in the history of our nation - the moment when the earth split open and took Korah and his committee with it, after they challenged the leadership of Moshe and Aharon.
A political dispute, after all.
But such a sinkhole will not open again: none of the camps and tribes in this country is going to suddenly disappear, whatever the leadership may be.
We are trapped here together, and when the earth opens its mouth here - everyone will fall into it together: Jews and Arabs, Orthodox and secular, Mizrahim and Ashkenazim, rich and poor.
A sinkhole in Ayalon routes, last September (photo: official website, Ayalon routes company)
And we all know it will happen, sooner or later, under natural circumstances.
After all, the choice of sinkholes is an unconscious public recognition of the heavy price of the neglect of nature by man.
The greed, the endless construction, the hogwash of resources and the endless pollution will not go quietly.
Mother Earth awaits her revenge - and it will come, served a degree and a half hotter at least until the end of the century.
One day, probably while we are as usual busy with a collective quarrel, everything will fall into a deep pit, of one kind or another, and go down the drain.
it will already be too late.
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