Weekly Update

Not that I've been posting weekly, but maybe this title will encourage me to start a trend.....I do think it's interesting to have a diary of what life is like here, and my friend Heidi (hi Hids!) told me she likes to "compare and contrast" life in the US with my reports of life here, so here are some random thoughts:

First off, the public school year ended with a bang.  Or maybe that was more of a whimper.  It seems the teacher's union representing middle- and high school teachers was less-than-thrilled with the mandate handed down to them to work nine extra days at the end of the year to make up for "corona days".  When negotiations broke down, a lawsuit was brought, and last Friday, an hour before Shabbos, the court ruled in favor of the union and BOOM, just like that, school had ended for the year.  Most people didn't even find out until after Shabbos ended Saturday night and, based on what I saw on the local groups, there was a general feeling of "WHAAAAT?  Yesterday was my kids' last day at school?!  There was no closure! They didn't even take home their stuff!!!"

For our family, it hasn't made any difference.  The ruling only applies to Penina's grades/school and she was only going in for bagruyot matriculation exams anyway.  And they'll still be having those until the end of July (where's that eye roll emoji?!)

Speaking of bagrut exams, here's some crazy news: Currently there are almost 1000 corona patients in the educational system and over 23,000 people in quarantine from schools. Yet the District Physician's office today announced that quarantined students can sit for bagrut matriculation exams, which, as Dr. Eliana Aaron (you can join her daily Whatsapp update group at https://chat.whatsapp.com/EewEcjXLjY39MRSpXC4qcj) so aptly notes: "makes no sense epidemiologically unless they are in complete isolation from other students.  University exams will be given over Zoom, not in-person whenever possible.  It is reasonable to ask why high school students can be sacrificed to COVID sitting in a testing room with 'quarantined' students, while university students remain protected?"  YEAH--you tell 'em, Dr. Eliana!  Is the Israeli educational system's motto "Bagrut uber alles"?! 

Ilana is preparing for 8th grade graduation this week.  Since they have been together at school for the past few weeks, it is not as challenging as the virtual graduations students had in the US (although I loved how our friend Eitan's school made a video of each student walking with cap and gown and giving a speech).  The school originally announced that they would be making a video of the play and song/dance the girls had put together, and that Thursday's official graduation ceremony would only be for the girls and school staff.  I'm hearing whispers that they're trying to find a way for the mothers to attend. Meanwhile, here is the class picture (thanks to Meyrav's Boutique Photography), which makes me want to burst out laughing and crying at the same time:

Ilana is bottom row, second from right.  MAZAL TOV, Ilana!

And, lastly, the puppy update!  His name is Percy (officially "Sir Percival of [our town]), but, yeah, there's a little bit of Percy Jackson homage in there as well.  Here is my favorite picture of him.  He's playing "the tickle game" with Chana, which he looooves to do:

Who even knew dogs had armpits?!  He had his first vet appointment and we found out he weighed 800 grams.  That's less than a package of flour! We really saw it when we gave him a bath--that puppy is all fluff and very little else!  Ilana has not disappointed as a pet parent, getting up early in the morning with him (and a few times during the night) and showing endless patience. Here is a photo she took yesterday:

Bidud Redux

Yesterday, I started a blog post talking about the dissonance between what the Ministry of Health recommended and how it's all playing out in reality, since 17,000 (!!!) students and staff are in quarantine now.  The basis of my draft post was from Dr. Eliana Aaron's (aka "my boss") daily Covid-19 Whatsapp updates.  The info is Israel-centric but covers worldwide issues (to join, send a whatsapp message to: https://chat.whatsapp.com/Hdho9y6lAIj0OfKZKGH5eW):

"The Ministry of Health made recommendations regarding the safe return of children to schools.  This included capsules of 15 students, masks, distancing, hygiene and other measures.  The problem is, the Ministry of Health has no authority in the schools.  The Ministry of Education decided that these measures were not possible in a school environment, so capsules were eliminated and regulations were not enforced.  The idea of having a capsule system, similar to what many work places are doing now, is to expose limited numbers of staff and students to a potentially infected person.  The maximum quarantine needed for a sick student would have been14 other students plus teacher/s - so 15-17 others.  With the current situation, we are seeing a breakdown of the school system because of mass quarantines needed."

So how did Israel get to 17,000 students and staff are in bidud? Because as soon as one student tests positive, the entire school is shutdown and everyone is in quarantine.   Weeeeell, today we saw this up close and personal when Penina's school became the latest with a student who tested positive.  The girl is two grades younger than her (that's all the info we know) and we've only been sending Penina on an "as needed" basis for bagrut matriculation exams.  As she was walking home from one today, her phone went berserk with messages from her class: the police had come to shut down her school, with one class being herded out while in the middle of a bagrut exam.  Although, by the time she got home, it wasn't a surprise to us since OUR group chats were going nuts too.  She gets to be in "house bidud" since she's not in the girl's class, so we'll think positively about it being a two week vacation from going outside (the students in the girl's class have to be in "one room bidud").  

Some nice news is that she'll at least have extra company while hanging around the house: we got a puppy last week! He's a very cute and tiny Maltese.  Still working on the name (although my mother's suggestion of "Corona" was spot on.  We had actually planned to finally cave to Ilana's years-long desire to own a dog when Penina graduates high school next year.  We even thought we'd call it "Penina", just to keep things simple.  But worldwide lunacy moved the schedule up a fair bit).

Penina says she's part of the "Pup-Parazzi" ("Puppyrazzi"?).  And although I'm likely going back to work part-time (two afternoons a week) starting next week, I'm delighted I'm still home, as it's enabled me to do "Mutt-ternity Leave" and work on house training him (he's a natural!).

Of this photo shoot with Chana, Penina says, "It's JUST like doing a newborn shoot!!!"