My daughter could not contain her excitement, and I also got this contagion at some point, but only after we had finally sat in the 9th row of the EasyJet plane with our luggage.

While she painted, I read Yishai Sarid's novel, in its German translation. I had to take a break every few pages to process the characters in this story. The main protagonist is an anonymous historian

He works at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and runs tours in Auschwitz and other concentration camps.

Nothing is new in this novel we have heard it all and seen some of the sites with our own eyes,, or have been told about them by our family members. But despite all this, this topic is never easy or more tolerable. Maybe even because of this.

After two and a half hours we landed at the tiniest airport on the island. After filling out the official government form I got a QR code. Without this code you cannot enter the country. Everything went smoothly.

Less than half an hour later I was already at a car rental company with the keys for a 20-year-old Fiat Punto. At first I was a bit angry, and I initially thought of making a brouhaha like in Israel, meaning to protest and make my voice heard, refuse to be humiliated, until someone calls the police.

But I was just too exhausted to do all this. And having read the novel, I finally understood what total exhaustion means. I loaded my two suitcases to our car and buckled up my daughter in the back seat

I sat at the driver's seat and turned on the radio. I found one station, which played traditional Greek music non-stop, and started driving. My daughter fell asleep immediately.

For an hour I roamed the winding roads alongside sheep and hens, cypress trees and oleanders.

I thought about January 2020, I thought about how I lost one of my best friends. How she just hung herself from the window sill of her home while her three daughters were sleeping their bedrooms.

I thought about April 2020, and how my grandmother went to sleep and didn't wake up, after years of pain, and how we buried her in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin, with all of the family members standing 1.5 meters apart.

I thought about how this all started seven months ago, not that much, and that in that short period I started working in three jobs, I lost two jobs, wrote 50 manuscripts and even managed to complete my new novel. And then I silently recited the Kaddish prayer. Due to the turbulent events of the past year, I already know it by heart.

A sad song blasted out of the speakers of this silver clunker, and I cried a bit. This did not feel liberating at all. And then I realized that I was not on the right course, so I decided to make a u-turn in some narrow trail full of sand. For five minutes I tried to put the car into reverse, but I couldn't, so I eventually got out of the car and pushed it with my bare hands until it finally stood on the right position so that I could continue driving.

A great start for this vacation, I thought to myself, but also to the second half of this crazy year.

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The hope I had harbored until the very last minute that I would able to fly to Tel Aviv, after all, and stay there for a month, gave way to pragmatism. I don't expect Israel's borders to open until 2021. My hope had turned into sober realism, as you can probably tell. 

What I see and notice from my safe German couch makes me tired and a bit impatient. This is a weird feeling, in which I cannot be in Israel when it devolves into chaos.

Over the past 10 years, I have always been there. In 2011, during the social justice protests, in 2014, during Operation Protective Edge, and also in 2019, when I had the glimmer of hope that a political change was in the offing.

But my impatience has nothing to do with some bizarre war tourism hobby or voyeurism; it just that I can't quite understand anything if you are not physically present there. I always believed in this phrase and today I see things through that prism. 

I know that this principle that has wired me in such loyalty has been met with total dismissal by others and that anyone can say anything about anyone, and everyone has their own opinion on any stupid thing, rather than abide by what Socrates said: "I know that I know nothing"

During our modern era, people believe they know everything, but that is rarely the case. They read somewhere on Twitter, they saw a video on YouTube, they saw some half-sentence in a newspaper, and based on those snippets of information they have declared themselves to be experts.

This takes place in America, in China, and in Botswana, it doesn't really matter where. The modest declaration, "I don't know," has become disdained, just like playing Tetris. But if we had only kept this phrase in our lexicon, it would have provided great relief to all of us, both online, and in our discourse in general. 

The thought that I would be in my getaway in just a week's time, perhaps even to the point that I would be turning off my phone and playing on the beach with my daughter while bathing in water and playing water games, or just sitting in a fine village restaurant and drinking Retsina Greek wine gives me a great deal of joy even now, in part because of the intellectual stress that I have had to endure over the past several weeks. I am looking forward with delight for the crickets chirping and the fragrance of fresh citrus, to the scorching heat and the ancient olive trees, as well as the friendliness of the Greek. 

When I decided I would go on this getaway, there was no question in my mind that I would do what my daughter wanted. Ever since we visited Cephalonia, she keeps telling me she wants to go back. Ever since discovering, thanks to My Heritage, that she has 40% Greek ancestry, I have tried to accommodate her requests and passions on this matter. We are definitely going to listen a lot to Aris San singing – she has already memorized her favorite song Dam Dam – and we will act as if life is so easy to live as if we are in a summer night in an olive orchard. 

When we get back to Berlin, fall will have already started. Life will once again pick up pace, in part because Germany has managed to put the coronavirus pandemic on the back burner, to everyone's astonishment. In September, the first copies of my new novel will reach the journalists. This is a complete horror show for someone whose self-confidence hangs by a thread – that is, what will the reviewers say. The answer to that is to just give up and move on, and do more.

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His sin was that he was critical, in a piece in a paper, of a virologist who was giving advice to the German government. In response, the virologist, who is known for his hot temper, tweeted P.'s phone number and within several minutes he got hundreds of calls, including some that had anti-Semitic threats. 

So, we sat there, both of us, in the Israeli restaurant in the Mitte, just so we could feel like we were in Tel Aviv and talked about our experiences.

P., who works for one of the largest papers in Germany, told me that this entire thing made him feel sad. He even said that a big piece at the Der Spiegel, which appeared several days later, helped him more than anything else make his case. 

I looked at P. with a glare and tried to glean from his eyes whether there was something I could decipher. Maybe he was playing it all down because obviously things are going to make him feel bad. Maybe he just can't believe how hurt he feels, I thought. But his eyes said nothing. It was clear as the driven snow that he had thicker skin than me. 

Because ever since that incident several weeks ago, I told him, I feel like I have been living in a snowball that someone has shaken really really hard.

It is not that I wake up with panic attacks every morning or go to bed at night with panic attacks.

But the trust I had in this world has been deeply shaken. For at least 20 years, I have considered myself to be a progressive feminist who wholeheartedly supports the interests and voices of the minorities who are considered disenfranchised.

I have never been a great fan of self-pity and obsessive victimhood, but I have been in favor of affirmative action quotas and changing the media landscape in order to create greater diversity and to shatter some of the economy's patriarchal structures. 

For the past 12 years, I have railed in my writing, and even through my shouting, in the clearest possible way against these structures. Until my "sisters" decided to "cancel" me and redefined me as a privileged neoliberal feminist who acts in a discriminatory and prejudiced way against the disabled. 

In recent weeks, ever since that terrible day, I have been reading Francis Fukuyama and Ezra Klein. I have been watching clips of Ben Shapiro and Jordan B. Peterson and the young YouTuber Natalie Levin.

I want to truly understand what happened to my beloved progressive bubble, which I had considered to be my political home for a very long time, and to discover what's happening with me and what being banished has done to me.

Where do I stand now politically, I asked P., and he just responded with a laugh: "Sit and wait; you will now transform into a conservative and in three years time you will start rejecting the idea of quotas." 

So what's going to happen with this famous progressive feminist who has infamously become a neoliberal just because she wants women to be self-sufficient financially? What will become of this progressive feminist who has rejected hostile approaches toward children and is unwilling to hold negotiations using Marxist terms on her offsprings? Perhaps I had been a conservative for quite some time, I asked myself. Perhaps I had just convinced myself to believe in this progressiveness of mine. 

As days go by, more and more of those snowflakes from this unimaginable snowstorm fall and my visibility is getting stronger bit by bit. Who am I going to be, when the skies clear? I have yet to figure this out. 

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I will concede that I found this to be very amusing. Despite what is unfolding around the world, I have yet to lose my sense of humor. But a large portion of the population on this big crystal ball revolving around the sun has actually lost its sense of humor.

The internet was ablaze in the wake of his announcement. Some 24 hours after West's speech, Musk said he would support him (Remember this guy from Tesla?). He was the first to reply, writing: "You have my full support!"

Well, the internet, this "World Wide Web" as it is known, was replete with memes and posts that blamed West for just pretending to run so that he can siphon off votes from Biden and help Trump get reelected. 

But now in all seriousness, f-ing Biden? What's so scary about him that no one seems to envision him serving as president? Well, of course, obviously not Trump. But Biden? The man looks like the ultimate candidate to die of natural cause while serving as president. How old is he anyway, 100? 

So people are not too thrilled about the fact that politics has become a reality show, but what is the big difference between that and, say, George W. Bush, Bibi or Putin? Just because those three are not sexy such as Kanye doesn't mean they support some ancient Greek definition of democracy, which people keep referencing and mentioning even though none of those experts, supposedly from the educated middle class, have ever read Plato's Republic.

And just to set the record straight: In Ancient Greece, only a very tiny portion of the population was allowed to partake in the political process. Let's not forget that the rest were slaves! Yes, that was the case, they were slaves. 

Since we are witnessing the current clash of civilization (I don't want to be a party pooper and end the hysteria, but there have been many like these before, I am sorry to say, in the hundreds), we can now experience big social transformations that the next generations will surely have to write about in unflattering treatises. These are necessary transformations, like any social revolution. Perhaps West is part of this revolution, as president. 

Horkheimer and Adorno would have described what has been unfolding in the US over the past 100 years as "culture industry." They claimed that this is the cultural influence of the elites rather than the volkskultur, the culture of the masses. What the heck is volkskultur, kill me if you find out. Because even I, a history major, cannot recall a single instance in history in which there was a culture of the masses. It doesn't matter who creates culture or art, the money always trickles from the top down, from the higher echelons to the lower rungs of society. The current approach, the current strategy, to deny the "culture" is just something that for me appears to be not fully baked

So, let's get back to Kanye for a moment. Kanye, unlike Trump or Biden, is the son of a single mother who was a professor of English literature. He is a self-made man. If you will, he is a man of the people and as such, does not have the slightest clue in politics. Of course, people want to see as president of the US someone like Angela Merkel. But what is clear is that Kanye is better than Trump, Bibi, Putin, Erdogan and Biden.

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And since I am a great optimist, and because I truly am successful at making use of everything that goes wrong, I have now dealt with identity politics for the past week, as well as with wokeness and cancel culture. I have done so with such intensity that I have even decided that this will be the topic of my next paper that I have to submit as part of my Master's in philosophy. 

If that's the case, perhaps there is something positive about the fact that this summer I won't go on my vacation. Last week, Israel announced that the borders will have to remain closed until August 1. At first, I was sad; I couldn't think of what else I would do.

But I immediately began to look forward, as this is the only thing left to do. September and October are much better months anyway: They are not too hot and not too crowded.

Ok, so yes, it's terrible, because I had been thinking about the Gordon Beach for a week, imagining myself lying there on the beach chair and holding a glass of wine and how just before the sun sets, when I am a bit drunk, I would hold my daughter's hand and walk back to our Airbnb apartment. This summer will be the first in ten years without a vacation. 

If the entire month is rainy, I will have to order a last-minute flight to Greece. Because in Europe, the borders have been open for two weeks. In fact, everything is back to normal. The only thing that still reminds me of the pandemic are the people and their masks. 

The masks in the streets, and the coffee shops, in the supermarkets. I still don't have a proper mask but just a handkerchief that I stole from my daughter. In Berlin, there are 775 coronavirus patients among 3.8 million residents. It is safe to assume that it is easier to get syphilis here than COVID-19. 

On the other hand, the economic downturn is being felt. A few of my friends have been shedding clients and with the paralysis of the past four months, they have had to work for less money and fewer hours. Important investors are jumping ship from startups that have been running well, and I have been saving every penny to make sure I don't spend on unnecessary things. 

Even after the big crash of 2008, another six months passed before things reached rock-bottom. So now we have to be smart. We have to make money to put aside and work as much as possible, so long as there is work and money, take whatever you can, pay your bills as soon as possible, put aside money just in case for a rainy day, and stay calm.

Who knows, maybe even fill up your pockets. With the big crash of October 2021, you will be able to buy stocks cheaply and in 2025 they will be worth a fortune. You can't survive crises if you don't anticipate the future and if you don't keep your head. 

In light of these hectic times, I am so grateful for having started studying philosophy and that over the next five years, until my PhD is complete, I will be able to deal with the latest social trends.

So that I won't drown in this massive flow of information and the storm of digitization, philosophy has to be part of the core curriculum for every school pupil. It helps me in this period more than any therapy session.

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I am a Jewish woman in Germany. I lived in East Germany. I was a child of divorced parents. My father illegally left East Germany and I was then treated as the child of a fugitive.

When I was 17, I left home. I started working as a waitress and completed my high school diploma while waiting three nights a week, even though my parents didn't have a high school diploma. I have experienced anti-Semitism, I have been boycotted before and subjected to violence, and after saving enough money I wrote my first novel without a printing house, without connections.

I brought a girl into this world, I became a single mother and live in a rented apartment. Ever since her birth, I have been working full time on top of being a writer. To put it simply, I am a whole host of minorities: A woman, a mom, an East Berliner, a single mother and the daughter of working-class parents. 

But despite my biography, I have never considered myself to be a victim of my life circumstances or a victim of the social systems that have impacted me one way or another.

Everyone has the ability to decide if their definition of freedom is deterministic or part of free choice. In any event, my definition of freedom is actually very Jewish. For me, freedom is the understanding of borders and acting within those bounds. When all is said and done, the creation of the world is much less misogynistic than what people think. It actually shows the first time free choice is made.

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And now, in these past few days, hundreds of German granddaughters of Nazis have called for my cancellation, not because I am super unwoke when I dress up as an American Indian and not because I have used the n-word, or because I wrote a poem on rape or used the word homosexual. No. The reason is that I took away something from the term of Jewish freedom and did not define the raising of my daughter as a profession, and put question marks regarding materialistic feminism in a post on Instagram. 

Because of this, the women lost it and charged me that I am privileged white capitalist woman, made me into a pinata, and made sure to cancel my appearances on social media and even in the print papers.

They called for boycotting me and even called on my employer to fire me. They are just rich b**ches, whose great-great-grandparents made sure to persecute family and boycott its property, as well as that of my friends' families. These are women who profited from the suffering of others.

Their behavior has of course a long tradition in Germany. They like boycotts and hate freedom. They like tyrannical leaders and project their childish wishful thinking on the state.

They are sure that they are entitled to something. That Jews should give them something. They have a ridiculous view of motherhood, inheritance from their Nazi grandparents and they want the state to give them a prize for changing diapers. I

In any event, the state, the system, society, politics, and the economy are all bad and unfair. These women fall to the ground with a great howl and wag a finger toward the elites who prevent them from pursuing happiness. In doing so, they forget that their families tucked gold into their pockets, as well as silver and artworks of millions of Jews in order to achieve Germany's economic miracle. 

But this has not stopped them from casting themselves in the role of a discriminated minority even though they live in one of the richest countries in the world and their knowledge of real-world problems depends on what they watch on television. F-ing Germans!

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Exactly three months ago it happened. In fact, it happened on the very same day of the week. It was then that I wrote the first chapter in the Israel Hayom Coronavirus Diaries. I have just reread it and despite what I expected, it did not appear that embarrassing to the point that I want to bury my head with shame.

To the contrary: It clearly foresaw what was to unfold. It was balanced, reflective, and intelligent. Those words should not be read as me tooting my own horn. 

Usually, I think of my work as total crap. I am just so happy that I didn't get my assumptions and conclusions wrong, or my observations. And that for the past 40 years I have developed clear inner strength, which is the mental ability to withstand difficult situations in life without having to suffer continued damage. 

I did not stockpile on toilet paper, flour or noodles. In short: I did not go mad in light of the potential threat of death. I did not publish sensational texts that included the words mass death, piles of bodies or the corona catastrophe to describe the current situation; I did not publish ridiculous texts in which I declared the crisis as the coming of the messiah who will now turn the world into a better place. I treated the crisis exactly the way one should treat a full dishwasher that needs to be emptied. In any event, to all those who had given up in the face of several dishes and prefer to ride the wave of fear of Armageddon, I advise that they find a new hobby that would give them satisfaction once and for all. 

Because fear is still the best tool with which to reach the masses. This is what we learned. And that people can't handle contradictions, they can believe anything so long as it is served in small portions that meet their palate's preferences and that they cannot stop themselves from dividing the world into black and white. No, the coronavirus times will not solve climate change or turn us into new people. This virus did not bring us to the end of our evolution, we are still evolving. 

I started my Master's in philosophy in the autumn and in this term I decided to take, via Zoom, a class called the "Philosophy of History." In other words, the science of human evolution.

Quite a few philosophers have grappled with the question of how humans develop; how society develops. Almost all of them were convinced that there is something that can be considered an endpoint. A moment in which we stop evolving. The smart and wry philosophers fell for this mistake, including Kant and Hegel. Everyone, without exception, was convinced that you could see the end in sight in the corner of your eye. Just one more thing had to happen, and then we will be finally at our ideal world. 

Well, that's just BS. This is not an ideal world. There is no end in sight, not in the corner of the eyes or anywhere else. This idea, this vision, that we could somehow experience the great tipping point, that we would be there and that everything will sort itself out through providence, is nothing more than this great fear we all have over being a small flickering light in this massive horizon in our universe. Anyone who thinks we can live in this great final countdown should deal with their own death for once. Just like that, with a cup of tea next to them. They have to learn to let go. 

Because we all have to, each one for himself and herself, to understand and acknowledge that billions upon billions of people will inherit us and that they will have wiser thoughts and develop greater things and make the world into a different place, perhaps even better in some respects. We are not going to be around, but our children's children will.

What? That's not enough?   

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Yes, they are even planning vacations and getaways. Slowly but surely, restaurants are allowed to stay open longer. Slowly but surely, children are allowed to go back to school. Slowly but surely, people are returning to their old-new reality. 

This is my case as well. But for different reasons: Yesterday was a special day.

I finished my latest round of editing for my new novel, and after that, I cried a bit, as people usually do in such moments.

My book will come out in the fall, this year, published by the largest publishing house in Germany. This is my second novel. And as some of you know, writing the second novel is the worst, because when you start writing it you ask you yourself how did you ever come around to writing the first one, and then you get scared from those who write book reviews in the press, because they either totally ignore the second novel or tear it up mercilessly.  

But the past 18 months of writing with uncertainty and fear, and the prognosis for a very dark future played no role in my mood yesterday. Because yesterday was just about the characters in the story that I had spent the past 18 months with and now we had to part ways. Bye-bye Nikka, bye-bye Noam, bye-bye Traneg, Mayan, Easolet, Roza,  Leah and Doar. Bye-bye to the violence and the passing down of trauma through the generations. Bye-bye to the fractures and crises of life, those that you have to accept and those you cannot ignore. Bye-bye to the content of my life story. Because this is how writing a novel is, and how writing this novel was. 

Writing has livened up my life every day for the past 18 months. I missed my best friends' birthdays, I missed dinners and lunches and parties. I didn't really do anything. I didn't do anything but work for the past 18 months. This weekend is supposed to be the first weekend in many weeks in which I will actually be free. I may be free, but I will not feel particularly free, but rather a bit lonely. I will feel deserted because my characters will have left me due to my novel being complete. 

This is because for a writer, there is nothing more beautiful than not having to be part of the real world, the actual world. At least that's the case with me. I like to live inside my books, and inside my manuscripts, and I like the fact that I have a good excuse to not having to take part in day-to-day life.

"I am sorry, I can't come with you to the concert today, because I have to write!", this is the ultimate excuse. There is not a single person in this universe for whom these words will cause disappointment. Absolutely no one. Everyone shows a great deal of understanding, whether they are authors ("O, God, the poor soul is writing a novel, what a nightmare," they must be thinking) and whether they are not authors ("WTF? A novel? I have not idea how to do that"). 

I bid farewell, with great affection, to my edited text, and I now leave it to its own devices. Its fate will send it on a long journey, a journey that will bring it to many hands of readers, to hands who will like my text and hate it, and find it too stupid or somewhat acceptable.

My characters, the ones I love like my own child, are now on their own, to the best of their ability. From this moment onward, they are no longer my dependents, but my life actually depends on them. Just like a real mother in real life. 

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I sit on a lawn chair. My best friend B.'s partner, M., is working the grill. I spray water on the children playing in the kids' pool.

The birds tweet; the bees hum; I take a sip from a glass of white wine.

It is 2 p.m. and M. flips the steak and then the hot dog. This is all in very slow motion. He tells me: "I love the coronavirus."

I nod. Everyone whom I have met over the past several weeks has been telling me they love coronavirus. They love the fact that life has slowed down, that the pace of life has allowed calm to set in, that there is a lack of pressure. 

Of course, they like it because they are privileged. That's abundantly clear.

While I drink my white wine in a lawn outside Berlin and take in the smells of properly roasted steak, millions around the world are at asking themselves how they would buy their next slice of bread. I know this is true, and I want to say this loud and clear. 

But in my world, no one has lost their job because of the virus. Many have even received a government stimulus.

But despite this, this is more than just about people who have it easier. It's also about their take on life. M. has a restaurant. For three months it was shut down. And my best friend B. is a professional presenter, and usually holds large events.

Besides that, they have a band that would normally perform every week. That means that they are wholly part of the group of people who should have suffered more than others. But they are not suffering, because they have adapted.

B. now hosts more radio hours. M. has set up a delivery service in record speed. They have not whined, they don't complain, they don't pin this problem on someone else. They did not have to choose a side in order to feel stable inside. They are living the present. What the present brings they accept in open arms, rather than in clenched fists. 

I have also been losing some 3,000 euros a month because of events being canceled. Previously, I would make most of my income by taking part in panels and hosting events and reading nights. But when I realized that this would no longer be feasible, I recalculated my route, as the navigation app says. 

I made sure to inform through my social media accounts that I am available for hire for occasional projects. And ever since, I have managed to compensate for the loss of revenue using new projects. 

About 10 days ago I held my first Zoom reading event. Those who read my diary last week probably remember: In one day I sold 300 tickets for 5 euros each.

And then on Monday morning, I sat in my kitchen in front of a computer. I had 300 people from around the world with me. This was one of the most beautiful experiences I have ever had. I really have to say this. And now I plan to do the same thing every two months. And here, Boom! Something very good has emerged from this very complicated situation. Rather than lethargy and sleepiness, I have found solutions. This has always been my motto. 

B. throws a ball to my daughter. My daughter throws it to B.'s daughter, and she in turn passes it to her younger sister. B. calls out, "I love the coronavirus."

And I take a long sip from my white wine, close my eyes and imagine that from now on I will no longer have to step in my office ever again, and no longer have to go on pointless rides to events, but run my life from the lawn chair in my garden.

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Last Wednesday, I met a friend over wine. We sat outside under the sun and were thrilled that normal life has returned, in some sort.

She told me that her social circle has been cut in half, if not more. She works as a vice president for business development at a large American corporation in Berlin, and as part of her job she is responsible for the European market.

She is a very bright woman, educated, and most importantly – successful. She won't let anyone dictate to her anything. Perhaps she can be described as an independent thinker. Perhaps this is the most relevant thing here. 

She has never spoken with disrespect or mockery about the measures taken to fight coronavirus. She has only mentioned the major impact they have had on all of us – and will continue to have on all of us over the next 18 months.

Sometimes she reminds me of her mother, who worked as a nurse in a hospital for 40 years and told her that during the annual flu citizens, people would fall like flies. 

My friend keeps saying that she is so happy we have Angela Merkel as our chancellor, because she is reasoned, wise and a human-loving person, but it is indeed very possible that over the next two years, we will all look back on what is happening now and assess things differently. I agreed with this analysis during our meeting. 

But the very real problem is that there are only two camps, each slamming the other one that they don't understand the world.

Each one claims to have the truth. What neither camp understands is that they are actually very much alike, in their rejection of the gray areas, and in their extremist positions and accusatory rhetoric against the other camp. 

We are still clueless about this virus; its economic and health impact is still unclear. Nothing.

Anyone who claims anything else should become familiar with one word: doubt. And then they should relax and lean back. Not knowing anything is worse than the virus. I understand that. 

Perhaps it would actually help to look at the positive developments? There are so many great things that have emerged from this crisis: working from home; yoga from home; and book-reading events from home.

Several days ago I had this idea of organizing a reading event from home. I shared my idea with my 16,000 followers on Instagram and within 36 hours I sold 300 tickets to the events, 5 euros each.

Only four months ago, this would have been an impossible feat. But now, thanks to coronavirus, and the new normal, it is here. Every crisis brings its innovation and inventions. Crises are the engines of progress, of growth. 

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Yes, of course, I have lost this or that friend during the past several months. But this way it is easier to understand whom I can trust in the future to fight with us, in hell and high water, in good times and when the going gets tough.

Those who have stayed are those who have set free from the need to demand a hold on the universal and absolute truth.

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