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

The Finance Ministry warned against a nationwide lockdown, claiming that between 400,000-800,000 Israelis will lose their jobs.

By HAGAY HACOHEN
Israeli border policewomen chat with local residents at the entrance to Bnei Brak as Israel enforces a lockdown of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish town badly affected by coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Bnei Brak, Israel April 3, 2020 (photo credit: AMMAR AWAD / REUTERS)
Israeli border policewomen chat with local residents at the entrance to Bnei Brak as Israel enforces a lockdown of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish town badly affected by coronavirus disease (COVID-19), Bnei Brak, Israel April 3, 2020
(photo credit: AMMAR AWAD / REUTERS)
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 travel, work and leisure during the High Holy Days and Sukkot.
The Finance Ministry on Wednesday warned against a nationwide lockdown, saying 400,000 to 800,000 Israelis would lose their jobs. A flexible lockdown model that would limit residents of so-called “red” cities but allow others to work is preferable, it said.
On Thursday, business leaders met with Finance Minister Israel Katz and warned him that businesses forced to close now would not survive. Instead of closures, they recommended that the government invest in enforcing existing health regulations, including wearing masks and social distancing.
“Better COVID-19 than starvation,” former tour guide Elena Gorbacevski told the Knesset Economy Committee on Thursday. With four children, she collects NIS 3,000 a month from the National Insurance Institute and must pay NIS 2,500 in rent, she said.
Families with only one breadwinner, including hers, “must get compensation that will help us hold on,” Gorbacevski said.
With Israel now a “red state,” incoming tourism has declined to a trickle. Only domestic tourism remains a source of income for hotels, tour guides and other service providers. That, too, might end if the government declares a lockdown, business leaders said.
Whether hotels remain open or close will depend on “where the local police decide to place the road block,” a source with a generation of experience in hotel management told the Post.
In Jerusalem’s Mahaneh Yehuda market, Reuven Filo, a co-founder of culinary-tourism company Yalla Basta, said businesses and workers need to reinvent themselves.
“Mahaneh Yehuda market was opened during the Ottoman Empire 140 years ago,” he 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.”
Filo, who has been a tour guide in the market for 13 years, spoke after a night shift as a security guard, a gig he took on during lean times in the tourism sector.
“I see that on some days the market is about 35% of what it usually is, and businesses are closing,” he said, citing Samantha Jones pub and Berlina hot dogs.
However, Filo 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 endanger the health of our clients and guides by changing the guided tour’s route and end with a new-year toast in the market.”
Meanwhile, 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, a Tel Aviv court ruled Thursday.
Judge Rachel Arkobi decided in favor of a couple with five young children who sold their apartment after declaring bankruptcy but declined to evacuate it on time. The pandemic made it harder for them to find a new home, she said.
Being that the buyers received “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, Arkobi wrote in her ruling.
“This aspect of the coronavirus pandemic is going to reach the doorsteps of courts around the world,” she said.