Life in Lockdown

Israel is pushing 7000 Covid cases per day and today the lockdown restrictions get even stricter, with less businesses open and less general movement allowed. Slightly hard to imagine what *less* businesses being open will look like.....This is what fancy Mamila Mall, just outside the Old City in Jerusalem, looked like the other day 

Parking in the garage underneath was ridiculously easy for 9:00 on a weekday, although I laughed out loud to see that some people insisted on playing the Israeli game of "let's-park-in/on-some-unusual-place" despite there being many open spots:

Restaurants are only open for takeout or delivery. Here is the pizza and falafel store in the mercaz 

I have a "red letter", which is a semi-official piece of paper that allows me to travel around. Traveling would be pleasant as the traffic is, of course, much lighter than normal, but police roadblocks make travel VERY challenging. Waze told me my normal 40 minute commute would take twice as long, due to a roadblock that had the main highway down from four lanes to one. To get to work the other day, I went through two police roadblocks (where I just had to say, "I'm a nurse going to work") but theeeen got to the Old City where it is a whole different ballgame: all the entrances have physical barriers preventing entry except through the gates that have groups of officers stationed to check letters, match identification, and on top of that ask each person to explain why they need to enter. I saw this up-close-and-personal when I forgot my letter the first day of lockdown and almost wasn't able to go to work. Thankfully, I got in after 15 minutes by sort of/on purpose/not exactly understanding what Mr Officer said and going through while he was talking with someone else (and praying I wouldn't get arrested. Let's just say that that Red Letter was printed, put in the thickest plastic protector we own and put in my bag before I left the house again).

It is so sad walking around and seeing almost everything shuttered. I have no idea if the economy will be able to rebound from this second hit (current predictions are that it will take 4-5 years for the country to financially recover) 

On the plus side for me personally, however, I ended a very long work day yesterday by being one of the few people allowed to go to the Kotel (because first, you gotta get in to the Old City and there's only so many people who live- or work there). 

The stairway down, which normally has a robust number of people collecting tzedakah  money, looked like it was Shabbos and not Thursday (in the front right of the photo, you can see scaffolding for the construction being done to make an elevator--HOORAY--to the Kotel plaza)

And the plaza itself was shockingly empty

Each section right near the Kotel is divided up into areas for 20 people, with spots on the ground to show each spot

It wonderful to be there and have the time and space I wanted and needed so much during this extremely-challenging time.....

Wishing us all a very sweet, happy and HEALTHY New Year

Fuggedaboudit!

 Forget about the nighttime lockdown that our city was part of; Israel now has the very dubious distinction of being the first nation to go into a second country-wide Covid lockdown. Tomorrow at noon, a few hours before Rosh Hashanah starts, all stores aside from groceries and pharmacies will be closed for at least three weeks. Stores are usually mobbed before the big holidays anyway, but, maaaan, things have been crazy busy because no one is going to be able to buy anything but food until mid-October. EEK. 

I still get to go to work during the lockdown. I will report back as to what it's like to be out and about while the majority of the country is limited to 500 meters from their home.  I was thinking today how odd and sad it will be to walk around the Old City with all the stores and restaurants closed.....

May we all be blessed with a very happy and HEALTHY New Year.

Oof--Nighttime Lockdown

 I didn't even get to post about the first day of school before, BOOM, in-person school is canceled and the girls are back home with a pile of worksheets and some phone-in/video-in stuff....Well, here's the first day of school photo, anyway:

Seems that when boys' yeshivas started on Friday, August 21, there was a predictable surge in cases a week later. Which spread to the sisters and parents and teachers and and and. So our city (where there are about 450 active cases out of about 25,000 people) became one of 40 cities put on nighttime lockdown starting last night and lasting for a week. Public schools and those under any amount of guidance from the Ministry of Education are are also closed, but this means that there are a fair number of fully private religious schools still operating. I fail to see the logic, because I think these decrees need to come from the Ministry of Health and everyone should be required to follow them, but my input was not asked for at a governmental level. I also fail to see any logic in shutting a city's borders from 7 pm - 5 a.m. Is Covid only active at night?! (The thinking behind this is that large [or should I say "large"] events like weddings will be forced to be small since guests can't come from out of the area. I still think it's pretty dumb. But I think the desire to do SOMETHING is huge for governmental officials who are desperate to appear that they are at least trying). 

In other, more positive news, Penina did something highly-unlikely for teenagers here and passed her driving test on the first try! The Israeli driving system requires a minimum of 28 lessons before taking the test AND there's no driving outside of lessons. SO: we gave the driving school a chunk of money and they gave us back a kid who knows how to drive. Pretty good deal in my book (and, having done it the US way twice, I'll say that I vastly prefer the Israeli way. Definitely money well spent)

Sign says, "new driver" 

Another bit of happy news is that cousin Jillian just started medical school here, so we get a real live awesome relative here for the next FOUR YEARS! Wahoooo!!! This is us visiting her while she was in bidud:

It got better, though, as we were able to visit from across the hall

I've been back at work part-time and starting tomorrow things start getting busy in my schedule. For a depressing chuckle, you can take a look at the type of outfit I typically wore at work last year

and how I look at work this year. Thank you, Covid-19, for the wardrobe update (not)

And, finally, since this post has so many photos, here's one more: Percy in his favorite position for being carried around. I love how he hangs his head over our arms: