Jerusalem
April 28, 2020
Once again I find myself walking on the street. Despite the silence, you can hear a soundtrack of some kitschy music that gets louder and louder. This era is the telenovelas' moment to shine.
The news programs keep showing footage of that falafel shop owner in Ashdod weeping over the loss of customers. Even the reporter next to him can't hold back the tears and moves away from the frame. The faces of those who died from coronavirus appear online over and over again.
Yes, the level of emotional reporting has reached new heights. Far from the limelight, there are those who do not know how to take part in this. The rules are very simple: If you don't cry or trigger emotions, you don't get anything. This is the new reality show called the State of Israel.
The coronavirus puts our national pride out to dry: the solidarity gland.
Even after it squeezes under the heat, it comprises 90% sugar and 10% tears. "In this country, without tears you are powerless," the owner of a laundry service on the street corner tells me.
Then when I go to the market, an owner at one of the stands tells: "I gave my soul to the state, but you think this matters to those who let IKEA open? Everything is politics; nothing has to do with health. When I found out that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin violated the curfew orders and celebrated Passover with their family, they lost me; they have no shame. He then adds: "Let them give up one day's worth of pay from their bloated salary – only one day – and then let's see how they cope!."
I then continue my depressing walk and stumble upon another Jerusalem author. "Beauty salons, barbershops, lottery stands, and IKEA," she tells me what the state has let reopen. "What does this tell us about our country and its priorities?"
The national gland is always sensitive to panic and hysteria. Now, just after Independence Day is approaching and the flags drape our porches and windows, the gland secretes sugar and explodes because of the sweet happiness.
Many people think that fireworks displays are out of sync without our overall mood these days, and that you can do other things with the money, even if it is a drop in the bucket.
But those who are addicted to the saccharine reprimand those who are party poopers. Getting angry over the elected officials' salaries is boring; it is too mundane to complain over the education system that is based on inefficient and exhausting study methods; it is just obnoxious to fight the bloated unions that have never had to experience the travails of the most suffering sector in our society – the self-employed.
They should just quiet down, give us fireworks! Give us a flypast of the Israeli Air Force! Give us lights! Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!
But the fireworks display only underscore the irony. It is a forced celebration in which we are essentially binding ourselves to the thick forest of independence, even if it is in a lame show of grandeur. For every saccharine tear there are hundreds of thousands who sit at home crying in secret. Be certain of one thing: They will not appear on the TV broadcasts.
As if that was not depressing enough, there is a bad stench in the air, of some decomposing corpse. When I return home, I see someone pleading with the passersby to help him jumpstart his engine. Everyone ignores him. Nothing, they won't even offer him jumper cables. Their faces are one big mask.
At home, I instruct my son to turn off the computer. "No Zoom today," I announce, and he breathes a sigh of relief. "We are going to study together," I continue. With experts throwing slime at one another, and with the emergency statutes discriminating against small business owners, we learn present simple conjugations together. It doesn't go so well, but I stop before we continue to study the next tense. I can't think about any future right now. Not even a grammatical future.
