Israelis worry about lockdowns: ‘Better to get COVID-19 than to starve’

With Israel facing a growing COVID-19 infection rate, the government is expected to rule in favor of new health regulations that will limit the public’s ability to travel, work and leisure during the upcoming High Holy Day season.

The Finance Ministry warned on Wednesday against a nationwide lockdown claiming that between 400,000 to 800,000 Israelis will lose their jobs under such a policy. The ministry said it supported a flexible lockdown model which would limit residents of so-called “red cities,” but would allow others to continue going to work.

Finance Minister Israel Katz met with business leaders on Thursday and was warned that businesses forced to close now won’t be able to survive. He was asked that, instead of closures, if the government could invest in enforcing existing health regulations such as wearing masks and maintaining social distance.

“Better COVID-19 than starvation,” former tour-guide Elena Gorbacevski told the Knesset Economy Committee after she informed them that, with four children, she collects NIS 3,000 a month from the National Insurance Institute (NII) and must pay NIS 2,500 in rent.

As the only bread-winner in her family, Gorbacevski told the MKs that “we must get compensations that will help us hold on.”

With Israel now a “red state,” incoming tourism has nearly come to a halt, leaving only domestic tourism as a source of income for hotels, tour guides and other service providers. But now that too might end if the government sends the country into a lockdown through the upcoming holidays.

A manager at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem said that with the growing COVID-19 cases reported in Arab and ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of the city, the hotel’s continued operation was in question, including if the hotel will remain in business or close its doors for good. It will depend, he said, on “where the local police decide to place the road-block.”

At the Mahaneh Yehuda market in Jerusalem, culinary tourism company Yalla Basta’s co-founder Reuven Silo, said that businesses and workers need to reinvent themselves.

“Mahaneh Yehuda market was opened during the Ottoman Empire 140 years ago,” Silo said. “The British crown tried to close it down and couldn’t, but what the royal family couldn’t do, one tiny crown [the novel coronavirus] was able to accomplish.”

With 13 years of experience guiding tourists in the market, Silo spoke after a night-shift as a security guard, a gig he took on during the lean times in the tourism sector.

“We had to put ten workers on unpaid leave,” he said, “earlier this month we rehired two women who were on maternity leave.” Before COVID-19, his company would guide, on average he said, 120 groups per month.

“I see that on some days the market is about 35% of what it usually is and businesses are closing,” he pointed out, listing the Samantha Jones pub and Berlina hot dogs as examples.

However, he was careful to point out the market is reinventing itself.

“We now offer people gift baskets from the market and deliver them across the country,” he said. “Only yesterday we had a Jewish holidays tour to the Western Wall and decided, with the Old City being a Red Zone, not to danger the health of our clients and guides.”

Meanwhile Thursday, a Tel Aviv court ruled that while COVID-19 isn’t considered “an act of God” for legal purposes, it is a good enough reason to not honor some contractual obligations.

Judge Rachel Arkobi ruled in favor of a couple with five young children who sold their apartment after declaring bankruptcy but declined to evacuate it on time, citing that the pandemic made it harder for them to find a new home.

The judge wrote that, seeing as the buyers got “a good price,” spending a few months of extra time waiting before moving into their new home is not as damaging as evicting five children.

“This aspect of the coronavirus pandemic is going to reach the doorsteps of courts around the world,” she added.