Exactly two months ago I devised a plan for the corona era. Ravid and I had just returned from a weekend in Paris, where we met friends who had arrived from Israel.
The fresh memories of evenings replete with butter, wine, and statements such as "This coronavirus is just like the flu," suddenly became obsolete when those of us returning to Tel Aviv had to enter self-isolation for two weeks.
Simultaneously, in a parallel universe, those of us who returned to London were debating the merits of the Israeli coronavirus response over breakfast in a packed cafe.
Some said the policy Israel was pursuing was over-the-top and driven by hysteria. Others said it was preventative and cautious. Some said it was too early to tell. As for myself, I kept quiet, secretly plotting how to maintain my rogue way of life despite the lethal virus.
"Listen to me, and listen closely," I whispered in the ear of my blue-eyed and golden-hearted partner. "So long as the lockdown in Israel gets tightened and the UK continues with its unofficial herd-immunity policy, we are going to stay in London and enjoy the pleasures life has to offer while being careful," I told him. "But," I quickly added with the smile of Imelda Marcos, "when things deteriorate in the kingdom and Israel begins reaping the dividends of the early lockdown, we will take the first flight out and continue our lives in our homeland without interruption."
The plan, I must say, was not so far fetched. Two months after my meticulous planning, a window of opportunity opened.
While the UK was still in lockdown, and our social circles saw coronavirus patients swim like a school of sharks, the headlines in the papers in Israel showed promising signs of an easing the lockdown. Unfortunately, I am a failed Machiavellist: I could not anticipate the plot twist in which people would have to stay in an "isolation hotel."
Well, I am still entrenched in my place. Despite my deep desire to go to the barbershop, I will not self-isolate in a room along the dead sea, which according to press reports offers not-so-good food and bed bugs.
Bitter and frustrated, I thus resorted to looking at the Instagram photos of my BFFs in Israel, who take off their masks and throw them off as if they were bras in a feminist protest in the 1960s.
One girl just had manicure and pedicure, and another has just bought a book and a dress. And this one, she was comfortably reading a book in Rabin Square with a coffee at hand, and the sun is now shining from her hair.
I really want to give them a shutout, but every story hits me where it hurts. How dare they? I moan when I look at the picture of them drinking Rosé wine on the rooftop. Don't have any shame? I see them avoiding social distancing without fear. What happened to solidarity? What happened to that famous sense of togetherness?
Where has that sweet moment of everyone sitting alone in their own room gone? How come I am the only one whose cultural world is void and has no access to a beautician or a grocery store?
And the truth of the matter is that you cannot compare the two situations. But if there is one thing that my grand plan has demonstrated it's that if this was the 1930s, I would have probably had the same failure to grasp that British Mandate Palestine, with malaria and all, is better than Europe with its plenty lakes.
