Manhattan, New York, March 31, 2020
"The streets were empty."
Writing this short sentence would usually be embarrassing, because it is such a cliché.
This time, I had no choice but to use it, and I am willing to take full responsibility for this. The streets were indeed empty.
We came back to New York for several hours, just to pick up necessary chattel, and mainly in order to remind ourselves that the world we had come to know, our beloved world, still stands. This was a bizarre and depressing experience.
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West End Avenue was desolate, as if I was in some dream or a psychological thriller like Vanilla Sky. We saw an older man with disheveled hair in his night gown, boots, surgical mask and blue rubber gloves walking his white, limped-tail dog, which seemed to be dragging along just as stunned and confused.
On Broadway, you could barely see a single person. The traffic lights, which seemed more colorful than normal, continued to change colors at their normal pace, without letting the almost-empty street affect their daily routine.
Instead of the normal traffic, there were police cars and other first-responder vehicles.
Perhaps these cars are always there, but now, with the other cars nowhere to be seen, their presence was much more prominent and made the apocalyptic atmosphere even more aching.
The various outcasts – the crazies, the beggars, and the homeless who have no place to shelter-at-home to fend off the pandemic – can also suddenly attest, in their dramatic presence on the street, that the city had indeed shrunken.
Most of the shops were closed. Those that had opened had long lines.
Customers were waiting for a green light to get in – 10 at a time – to buy that urgent thing they need and then quickly disappear back into their shelter, their apartment.
It took me a minute to internalize why the long lines seemed so weird to me, and then it hit me: New Yorkers had departed from their usual impatient and in-your-face demeanor and instead just stood apart and chose not to step on each other's toes.
They kept a safe distance. I don't quite understand what I was going through, but I found this matter particularly saddening.
Nevertheless, New Yorkers haven't stopped being the social animals that they always were. The municipal and community centers are still a vibrant place, but just not physically: They are active within the many homes and iron gates of buildings, with doormen who now wear latex gloves and surgical masks rather than don their hats and white gloves.
The slew of organizations in the city – from churchgoers, synagogue congregations, and various parental groups in co-op schools – have continued to live very real online lives, and have been doing all they can to bridge the physical distance that has been imposed on them by the new urban reality.
Ironically, Jewish life in New York has not stopped even one bit, and it is actually seeing a renaissance of sorts.
The synagogues, whose gates were shut closed as soon as the outbreak reached the city, are now offering a whole host of online activities: daily prayers, Torah study, support groups and fundraising for the many who have been afflicted by the new situation, whether because of their lost livelihood or because they are now isolated.
For many of the participants, there is no time or patience to deal with all these activities but they offer comfort because they give the impression that life continues despite everything.
A new, rather beautiful institution has been created by this situation: the virtual cocktail. Luckily, alcohol stores have been declared "essential businesses" and hence sales are flourishing.
Most of our friends set up virtual cocktails in which they can drink together online, thanks to Zoom, which has been a godsend in these dire straits.
This may sound silly, but we find ourselves eagerly waiting for these online gatherings and truly enjoy them. We don't belittle the degree to which this situation has managed to shock our lives, even as we try to disguise this with nonchalance and irony.
Every type of contact with people in the outside world helps ease the anxiety, especially when you are drinking good wine or a properly-stirred Negroni.
Reuven (Ruby) Namdar has lived in New York for the past 20 years. His novel "The Ruined House" (2017) won the Sapir Prize, Israel's most prestigious literary award.
