The past few days have been accompanied by a sense of a lack of footing and brakes.
The government is making sounds of lockdown, another one. People are being sent to self-isolation in droves, indiscriminately, because of the Shin Bet security agency's tracking mechanisms, and the public once again gets blamed by the arrogant leadership that is doing everything it seems to undermine the little public trust that it still enjoys.
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The last time that I felt something like this was in 2003, when my doctor advised me to get an abortion because of a virus that had been detected in my blood tests. The doctor did not spare words in his warning and said the baby would be born without eyes, legs, hands and other organs.
I remember entering the special ward, waiting for a specialist. It was there when I heard many horror stories about various cases. It is good to stay out of hospitals and avoid that place as much as possible, where thousands die from infection every year. This piece of data is very relevant today as well.
That day, I refused to talk about abortion. I asked to be discharged and get a second opinion. After a battery of tests it turned out that the first doctor had misinterpreted the test results. They were indeed positive, showing that I actually had the antibodies for the virus. "So a woman who got this opinion would get an abortion? " I asked. "Easily," he replied. "She wouldn't have even come to me."
When I returned home that day I decided to stop having all my pregnancy checkups at that filthy place and to just go for walks and proper breathing. I conducted a comprehensive study on home birth and interviewed women, learned about the mortality rate and risks. And the two births I carried out were at home, despite my doctor's protestations. "As far as you are concerned, I am supposed to abort the baby, so why do you care,"I answered him.
Now with all that's going on, I have to walk to the old city to feel the soil under my feet. Jaffa Gate welcomes me and I enter through it to a parallel universe. Everything looks the same, yet different. I go through the various stations that are familiar to me: The Tower of David, where I held instruction tours during my second year of military service until the Second Intifada broke out.
During those days there was an exhibition of the works of a glass sculptor called Chihuly. All these years I thought he was Chinese but only upon writing these words I had to look him up and realized that he was American. His first name is Dale. Did I feed an entire generation with the wrong information?
I pass by the various landmarks. In one of them, an Armenian monastery, I once interviewed the school principal there ahead of the anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. The entrance to the Jewish Quarter brings back memories of my first teenage kiss, at one of the churches. By the way, the kissee was the son of a famous rabbi. Those were the days.
Near Zion Gate I remember a Dutch guy I met when I was 17. He wanted me to take a photo of him, and then we ended up corresponding on religion for 10 years. He tried to make me change religions and even visited Israel with his wife. Now there are no tourists who are going to ask me to take their photo. Only the person selling bagels at the stand, with his bored eyes looking at the yeshiva students.
I return to the border between the Jewish-Armenian quarters and I stumble upon a nun, a former mathematics teacher, who had left her homeland and now dedicates her life to living in the most difficult city on earth.
She recognizes me, smiles gently, and tells me sadly that she misses the tourist groups. She refuses to mention the virus and only says that the government is making mistakes that we are all paying for. We bring up memories from the time of colorful tourist days as if we were 100 years old.
Bilal's shop at the local shopping area is closed. I go to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. There is no one there, not even a Slavic woman skiing for health for her family. I leave with very depressing feeling and go back to Bilal's clothing store, hoping it might be open.
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