Grapevine: False negative

Some people are so afraid of being tested for coronavirus and being found positive that they actually give false information to the testers.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
Israeli students at the Orot Etzion school in Efrat wear protective face masks as they return to school for the first time since the outbreak of the coronavirus, May 3, 2020 (photo credit: GERSHON ELINSON/FLASH90)
Israeli students at the Orot Etzion school in Efrat wear protective face masks as they return to school for the first time since the outbreak of the coronavirus, May 3, 2020
(photo credit: GERSHON ELINSON/FLASH90)
■ SOME PEOPLE are so afraid of being tested for coronavirus and being found positive that they actually give false information to the testers, such as the name of someone else and that someone’s phone number. That’s what happened to marriage therapist Micki Lavin-Pell, who posted a message on her Facebook page congratulating the person who had used her name and telling whoever it was that they tested negative.
■ FANS OF Celine Dion – who was supposed to perform in Israel in August, but rescheduled her concerts to June 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions – can exchange their tickets, unless they acquired them through Jerusalem’s Bimot ticket agency.
Reader Manny Blumfield had some time ago booked a concert with Bimot. Due to the coronavirus crisis, the concert was canceled, and Blumfield sought to get a refund for the cost of the tickets. Bimot, which takes contact details and credit card numbers of people who book by phone, did not contact him about the canceled concert, so Blumfield tried to contact Bimot, telephoning again and again to no avail. No one answered the phone, nor was there any response to the emails that he sent.
For more than three months there has been a message on the company’s website stating that, according to Health Ministry instructions, their operations were closed, concerts would be rescheduled, and that ticket holders would get a full refund. The announcement adds that the company is holding tickets for future use. The concerts may have been rescheduled, but ticket holders have not been notified of the new schedules, nor have they been refunded.
Blumfield tried a personal approach and went to Bimot’s storefront agency, which is still closed without any notice of explanation in the window.
At this stage, it is impossible to tell how many other people have suffered a financial loss, but to some people, to whom NIS 50 or NIS 150 for a ticket was of little consequence before coronavirus, today, given their new economic status, such sums may mean the difference as to whether they can afford to buy groceries, let alone medications.
■ RELIGIOUS, CULTURAL, educational and business enterprises are all using Zoom and other social media platforms for lectures, interviews, study sessions, debates, et al. Not only is this saving a lot of time and travel expenses, but it is also breaking down national, social, religious and gender barriers, as people of different faiths and nationalities, from different walks of life, are in contact with each other without even knowing each other. That also happens at international conventions but on a different scale.
It was amusing, however, to see in the notice for a new weekly Zoom study session being conducted by Rabbi Yosef Ote, the spiritual leader of the Hazvi Yisrael Synagogue in Talbiyeh, that the study meetings are open to both men and women.
During ordinary times, women sit separately in the upstairs gallery during services, but for lectures and social events, men and women sit together, and so far, no effort has been made to change this, although certain other stringencies have been introduced.
It would be interesting to learn whether Zoom programs in the ultra-Orthodox community are for men only or for women only.
■  OVER THE past few months there has been much talk about the vulnerability of senior citizens, especially those who were isolated in nursing homes, retirement homes and other sheltered living facilities and denied the opportunity to meet with their closest relatives. While there were several such facilities in which a relatively high proportion of residents were infected with coronavirus, there were others where it was nonexistent.
One such corona-free facility is Protea Hills, a wonderful retirement village located on Moshav Shoresh, where most of the residents are mentally and physically active, and social events have barely been scaled down. Residents observe the guidelines of the Health Ministry, but continue with the plethora of activities that keep them young regardless of the dates on their birth certificates.
Every year, the residents hold a bazaar with proceeds going to a specific charitable cause. The cause chosen for this year is OneFamily. The bazaar is scheduled for the end of June, pending Health Ministry regulations. But before that the bazaar committee, comprising Judith Nachmias, Judy wAronson, Miriam Yankelevitch, Jedidjah Gross, Becky Mevorach, Levanna Elkeslassy and Channa Sommerfield, is putting together a fashion show for residents using garments donated to the bazaar. Models for the show, scheduled for June 24, are the foreign caregivers who work for some of the residents.
If it’s been a tough time for Israelis, it’s been even tougher for foreign caregivers, so far away from their families, especially those from countries where the pandemic has taken a heavy toll. The caregivers are very excited about modeling, say the organizers, and the fashion show is giving them a big boost.
Also helping to organize the fashion show is Protea’s vivacious director of cultural affairs, Orit Maor, whose husband, Avi Maor, a former brigadier-general, was one of the pilots who participated in the historic Israel Air Force flyover of Auschwitz in September 2003.