Arab-Jewish Equality Does Not Extend Beyond the Medical System

Mahmoud, the nurse working in the hospital in the north, concludes, “the medical system is a place of equality between Arabs and Jews, both for staff and for patients. But outside of the medical system, Arabs are discriminated against in many ways. We have needed systemic solutions to create greater equality for a long time, and now we realize that we needed them even more.”

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Israel’s Weakened Health Care System Leads to a Near-Total Lockdown

Israel was one of the first countries to respond forcefully to the coronavirus. Many of the steps taken to contain the virus were later adopted by other advanced countries. The regulations are intended to “flatten the curve”—that is, to prevent a spike in the number of cases that could spiral out of control and overwhelm health services, as happened, for example, in Lombardy, Italy.  And on Wednesday, as the Ministry of Health announced that 2,170 people in Israel are sick with COVID-19 and 5 have died from the virus, the country went into an almost total lockdown. The new restrictions, issued by the government and based on emergency regulations, severely curtail freedom of movement. Israelis are now allowed to walk only within 100 meters (less than 110 yards) of their homes. Only two people are allowed in...

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Gaza Fears Impending Coronavirus Outbreak

The possibility of a full outbreak of the COVID-19 virus in the Gaza Strip is both likely and terrifying. More than two million people, over half of them children, live in the 139-square-mile area, one of the world’s most highly-populated regions. Unemployment stands at 52 percent and half of the population lives in poverty. Much of the housing and 97 percent of Gaza’s water is unfit for human consumption, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

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Screenshot of an Israeli comedy show

Israeli Humor in the Time of Coronavirus

Like most first-world people stuck in their homes, Israelis are using traditional and social media to connect with others and distract themselves. And like everyone else, they are sharing humor to pass the time. We have the run of English-language humor, from Jimmy Fallon to Broadway spoofs to memes to pithy one-liners.  We have our Hebrew one-liners, too: As the world became aware of the crisis in Wuhan, Israelis, who are among the world’s biggest buyers on cheap sites in China, quipped that the virus would never make it here because the mail from China takes so long. As people were told to self-quarantine, we warned each other that the Messiah won’t come, because he’s in quarantine. And while throughout the world people are singing from their balconies, Israelis are using their balconies to play matkot (a bizarre form of...

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Ultra-Orthodox Communities See Israel’s New Social Cohesion as a Threat

Much of the time, Israeli society is fractured by differences and resentments. Sometimes, we define ourselves more by whom we’re against than what we stand for: Jews vs. Arabs, religious vs. secular, right vs. left, Mizrachm vs. Ashkenazim, rich vs. poor, the periphery vs. the center. But as Israel has shown repeatedly, in times of emergency, we pull together. We are proud that crises bring out the collective best in us. In times like these, we don’t talk the language of difference and identity; we embrace (these days, at a distance) cohesion and social responsibility.  At this time, when we’re in lockdown, this underlying social cohesion, as I wrote in my previous piece, plays a big role in keeping most Israelis at home. But for some groups, and in particular, for some in the ultra-Orthodox community, this...

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COVID-19 Causes Israelis to Play by the Rules

Israel was one of the first countries to respond quickly and sternly to the pandemic. Internationally, it was one of the first countries to shut ourselves off from the rest of the world. Foreigners are almost completely forbidden from entering the country and there are almost no flights in or out. International conferences and gatherings have been cancelled.

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