"Look at how he works at the kitchen," my mother, always a sucker for carbs and cleanliness, says as she looks with glowing eyes at Ravid working the dough ahead of a poppy-seed Swiss roll without even making the slightest crumb fall onto the floor of the kitchen.

"His concentration is just superb," my pottery-enthusiast sister adds. She considers him a successful project, having trained him last year and making him build a small statue of a dog and had him paint it so beautifully, to the point that she had to reprimand her longtime student Daniela for not properly following her instructions, unlike the super-concentrated Ravid.

Even my father, who likes gadgets, is so happy when Ravid tells him about the latest smart objects that my father has been struggling to cope with.

And this was also the case during our self-isolation, when Ravid taught my father to stream all the online concerts from my mother's mobile phone to the TV, so that he would not have to rally to her aid after every horror scream when she realized that the computer screen would turn off

I guess I should be delighted that my kind spouse is beloved by my family, but I must admit that I am also begrudging him.

In order to thank my parents for hosting us, Ravid decided to make Shabbat dinner for all of us every week. It turns out, just like in the military, that the way to a sentry's heart is through their stomach. His culinary enterprises, who evolved into monstrous dimensions during the lockdown days in London, now have an enthusiastic customer base in Israel who are hardly bothered by the price these culinary fantasies of the Don Quixote chef have exacted on the Sancho Panza squire, a miserable man in the Tel Aviv area suffering through the boiling heat with a mask, in search of some simple food. 

"Maybe you can just stop whining, " my father growled at me when he took some of the fish Ravid had prepared after our visit to the new fish store, during which I was tasked with waiting in the car, which had taken two parking spaces and therefore got a long of honks and swearwords. When my father returned to the car that day, he said, "Great produce." 

"So what if you worked a bit in the kitchen, not a big deal," my mother told me after I complained on the number of pots I had to wash, as she took more from the chicken balls Ravid had prepared just for her, because she is allergic to fish, or at least convinced she is since birth, even though two years ago she ate Fish schnitzel and nothing happened (but she did ask for more). 

"He always had two left hands," my sister said when Ravid remarked that I had burned half of the chicken. And while they lavished praise on Ravid for the fig tart that had been presented to them on the table, they resolved that this time I need a citation, because at least I helped chop the vegetables for the salad and I did without complaining even once.

The post The lost son appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

"We can have coffee," I said, taking two steps back as her gaze wandered off to the little kitten who was browsing the yard. 

"Brilliant. So tomorrow at the Buke?" She said as she took two steps toward me in horrifying messiness.

"Yes, tomorrow, great, but perhaps we should sit on a bench on Rothschild Blvd.?" I said, seizing the opportunity to take another step back as she checked her messages on her mobile phone. "I have decided not to go into closed spaces until we fully figure out what the infection rate is; I have to be vigilant because of the parents." 

"Sure, honey, whatever rocks your boat," she said, once again closing the gap between us without noticing, and her hand placed on my arm with an intimate move that was designed to calm me down. My gaze was locked on her furbished fingernails that were resting on my hand.

After four months of not touching anyone in London other than Ravid, even the fancy manicure she had gotten at that parlor in Tel Aviv felt like a skeleton that from a zombie taken right out of The Walking Dead. 

Shaken, I sat down at my isolated back yard right after Dita had left back to Tel Aviv, where (according to her incriminating testimony), she will kiss and hug everyone as much as she wants.

I don't want to sound paranoid, but I have been convinced ever since my arrival that Dita and the rest of our good friends, Tali and Loly, are talking behind my back. "This is completely nuts," they probably say as they express amazement over the "elbow handshake, no hugging" policy that I have adopted with great fanfare since my isolation. Due to their indifferent approach as the corona cases mount, I am convinced that they consider me some messy-haired Miss Havisham  who has escaped her mansion. 

"The numbers here are almost nothing; we barely have severe cases," they try to calm me down in our conversations, and I reply that in my experience living in the UK, the number of dead is a lagging figure that would become clear only after two weeks.

"There is no way of knowing anything with all these contradictory studies and the irresponsible leadership," they continue, and I respond that I because of this confusion we have to be extra careful, and as I say this, I try to figure out just when was it that I had transformed into a mother.

"Above everything else," they conclude, "we cannot let the fear of the virus control our lives, and the real danger is the economic crisis."

I tell them in response that they are right and ask myself whether I am Cassandra, who is sounding the alarm over Agamemnon's imminent death while the other characters look with bewilderment at her, or perhaps I have just become insane. 

"So how is it in Israel," my friends from London ask me. And I answer that I have been living outside Israel for the past 13 years. But this is the first time where I feel like a new immigrant in my visit back home, as someone who cannot figure out the locals' ways and anguishes if he has to abandon everything he has learned overseas.

The post Visiting my homeland appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

"Mine is very nice, yours is not nice," she responds, speaking about my parents' black-and-white cat, which was having fun on the patio table. "They are mother and daughter," my mother reminded everyone of their common genes, which made us turn from dog lovers to cat lovers. She immediately continued by telling them that the silent black cat and the white female cate have once again shared their food. 

Eight cats roam the area. My parents and my sister feed all of them. They are all numbers, they have no names, except Zevulun, a skeletal cat with a truncated ear who had arrived a year ago and turned into a bully with shifting moods thanks to their care. He has been accompanying my parents and sister in their neighborhood walks in the same level of zealotry in which he has been scratching them. 

The discussions has continued in the house over cats, the mulberries that my father has picked in his walks, on the points my mother has been tabulating as part of her weight-watcher program, and on the children who have been taking classes at my sister's studio.

This all has made the isolation for me and Ravid anything by isolated. The pace of things here is like a conversation that keeps twisting and turning but is only seldom interrupted and this makes me happy. This explains the inability of my family members to spot the moment someone is busy with something else and wants to avoid distractions. "Are you reading?" was a common question when I was young at home with my head literally inside a book. Without waiting for an answer, the person would start talking endlessly on what Shoshy the dog had done. But today there are eight cats rather than one dog. 

Unfortunately, I have adopted this. From my window at the isolation area, I tell Ravid on the neighbor who keeps shouting at her kids every night, or on the neighbor that everyone hates because of his barking dog. Only after 10 minutes I realize that I have yet to receive a response. The poor thing just wants to watch Netflix and chill. 

Even coronavirus gets its proper place in the conversations in my family. "There are 1,000 new cases today," my father tells us the news, with a satisfying yet grim look. "You guys are mad, no one is following the guidelines, another wave is coming," my mother concludes. 

"Come on, since when are you all so convinced on the necessity of the guidelines?" my sister erupts, and provides contrarian data from YouTube, from clips she watches every night. 

I so hope that she is right. But as for myself, who has arrived from the coronavirus-hit UK, I will stay in Herzliyya even after my isolation is over. I will continue to share stories about cats with my parents rather than go to Tel Aviv my love. Zevulun, that bastard, has already scratched me too!

The post Cat madness appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

She hopped over the stairs quickly. "Yes, but I have just landed, so let's wait." I lunged forward with the suitcase to the second floor. "I am the one who always runs away from everyone, and now you are running away from me?" She blocked my way to the isolation ward my parents had set up in their home and stood there like Christ before his crucifixion. "I have not seen you for six months, my boy, come on, give me one hug," she said. "Never," I shot back and shut the door. "Coward," she blurted toward me from the closed door and got back, disappointed, to the bedroom. 

I sat on my bed, surprised. This was definitely not how I expected my mother to behave. She is the most germophobic person ever, the queen of disinfectant and gloves, the virus buster, and the great social distancer who keeps everyone at bay and the mother of all masks.

I know more than anyone else – through our dozens of phone conversations – that over the past two months my mother has appointed herself to be the Corona Sheriff of Herzliyya and has imposed her dominion on the town, armed with her antiviral energy and gesticulation that only she understands. 

Only a week ago she told me with great pride how she blocked the path of two strong men on the main street because their masks were hiding below their ears, and to their amazement, she touched her nose to show them what they should do. At first they frowned, unsure what she was trying to tell them. Then she touched her nose again and smiled at them. They then realized what they should do and complied, blushing. 

The police officers were not the only ones on my mother's target list. At noon, while she was doing highlights at the barbershop in the city, she noticed dozens of children who had left school without masks. She immediately jumped off her chair, her head covered in foil and all, and reprimanded them. "But I am eating a popsicle," one freckled girl said. "So after you are done you have to put it on," my mother persisted. "Why are you even bothering to care what she says," another boy said and they both ran away. 

But apparently she treats foreigners differently. My friends, who had promised me they would come and wave at me from the street to help me and Ravid make time go by, disappeared when the rubber hit the road. This, as my masked mother patrols the area outside my isolation ward as if she has decided to rebel against Caesar.

Every day she tries to entice us to get out and give her a hug and she leaves at our doorstep more and more goodies to tempt us: cakes, chocolate boxes, cherry liqueur that my father had prepared for us.

And day after day we refuse to hug and promise that once the two weeks are over, we will do that. When I look through the peephole, I can only say one thing: My mother's highlights turned out great.

The post Family law appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

But the truth of the matter is that I walked into the ditch all by myself, right into the light-green water that reflects the sun due to its thickness. 

In fact, it was this thickness that led me to believe that the water was just a continuation of the pavement. The event, it turned out, was particularly amusing for Ravid, the coronavirus-immune Tzvi, and the absent-minded Yoram, who had just gone up the bridge at that moment when they heard my splash, despite being far away from me.

Upon hearing this noise, they turned their heads and all they saw was a takeaway coffee cup floating in the water, all by itself, without any signs of life of the man who had just held it a moment earlier. The same man who had ridiculed them for taking an unnecessary detour….

After emerging from the water, we sat on the dam in the center of the canal. I was a great sport in accepting the banter on my expense and looked with envy at those near me with dry clothes and hot coffee.

"This is the craziest period I have ever experienced," Tzvi tried to console me. "You can't concentrate, you don't know what will happen next week. You were probably looking at your phone," he continued. I immediately clarified that my phone was in my pocket and then blurted out a swearword. I then immediately realized: Forget about the coffee, what about my iPhone that had been killed in action? 

"You are not focused because you are flying to Israel on Friday," Yoram said, and I immediately concurred. Even in normal times, in the runup to a flight to Israel, I feel bifurcated between the two countries, not really present in either.

This is all the more true during these days when there is no way of knowing what the airports will look like and what we should expect in terms of isolation and flights. Ravid and I walk in the parks in London as criminals who had been sentenced to death and are unwilling to separate from the sweet freedom that we had taken for granted.

"Maybe this fall is symbolic," I muttered.

"The distorted return to normalcy, walking forward in anticipation of finding a solid footing only to discover that we have been sinking in the filthy water in the ditch. This is like that week we went to SOHO to see how the stores reopen but rather than find the lost routine, we discovered that Oxford Street is empty, that the stores won't let you try clothes on and that the coffee shops won't let you use the bathroom, so I eventually took a leak behind some bush in a park," I said. 

To which Ravid replied: "This is an interesting take, but as someone who keeps forgetting where he has left his keys and has lost two Kindles and a passport over the past two years, perhaps you have now set a new record in absent-mindedness."

I looked at Ravid with a frown, and he kicked me, smiling. The sun began to rise in the sky and the clothes began to dry in the warm breeze. Tzvi and Yoram said they had to go to work, and Ravid extended me his hand and we went to buy face masks. Their texture feels good, so there is a good chance that we won't suffocate from them on our flight.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post Falling and rising appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Now that the end of the Coronavirus Diaries project is nearing, it has finally dawned on me that I have yet to write on dreams, or on nightmares, or on how hard it has become as of late – since the world has changed – to differentiate between dreams and nightmares, which seem to be more real than ever. 

Even today, like in many other days over the past three months, I woke up at 6 a.m. as if someone pulled me out of some dark well. My heart beats like a war drum, like tribal calls of lamentation, and frankly, you can drop the word "like." It's very real. I have pure fear that has hit me because of the shock the body feels, which demands all of me even when I am awake during the day until it finally subsides until I realize that nothing has happened, and my body returns to its normal state. 

This process of restoring equilibrium was quick this morning. I needed only several minutes, unlike the first few months of the lockdown when sleeping was very different. It was a maze of passion, yearnings, and horror, filled with dreams of touching, hugging, and kissing. Of being drawn into a crowd and losing my way, at a party, at a club, on the streets, on trains, on enemies lurking inside the crowds, who run after me in hallways, who burst out of my body. 

During those first few months, sleeping was a trap, a tempting invitation to find a way out from the horror that quickly becomes a cage that cannot give you rest. But still, it's not the nightmares that caused me horror; it was the waking up part to the real world, which is very much like a nightmare you cannot wake up from. "Are there good news?" I would ask Ravid every morning, as we drank coffee, with the heart still beating rapidly, and he would shake his head and show me the latest graphs on the COVID-19 data. 

Now the world is more familiar and the nightmares have become less frequent, but the borders that separate reality and dreams are still very much blurred. Every time I think the world has returned to its former state, I understand just how much everything has changed: schools reopen and then close with every new case; every transaction in a local store leads to long lines; the people in the supermarkets look like creatures from the past; they scrutinize me with their penetrating eyes above the black beak that has a valve at the end. 

And during the nights I binge watch a series. The characters hug, kiss, sit at restaurants without any fear and with uncovered faces. In literary theory, there is the term "suspension of disbelief", in which we can identify with a fictional work because during our reading we accept fiction as truth rather than doubt it as an imaginary thing.

And here, just in order to feel solidarity with the series I am watching, I find myself doing the exact opposite. I suspend my own reality in order to identify with a fictional world that does not reflect the experience of life, from a dream on normal days that will return, hopefully, but might not return ever.

The post Suspending reality appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Three months into the pandemic and things are getting confusing. When Israel was in lockdown, London was still bustling with people, but the fear had already trickled.

We ate in restaurants that only allowed half of the tables to be occupied, we trained in gyms while disinfecting our hands until they bled, and we maintained social distancing as per the recommendations.

But toward the end of the week, before the lockdown was imposed in London, Ravid and I agreed on one thing we will not give up: hosting friends for a good Shabbat meal with cholent. 

There was a bad omen that preceded that. Moran texted me and said that her 5-year-old daughter had been coughing and therefore they would be staying at home. We took bets on who among our three other sets of guests will fall.

The primary suspect was Oded, who tends to touch everyone, and who insisted that everyone was paranoid during the early days of the pandemic. Two days later he partied at a live Indy concert.

The second suspect is Yoram, who still has to arrive at the office by bus, due to this ruthless boss. As for Zvi, the handsome person who had just returned from an exclusive ski vacation, we never thought he would be the one after he complained he was losing his sense of taste and smell while he was eating our cholent. 

Several days later the facts began to trickle in. Loss of smell and taste was a declared a key symptom of COVID-19, and worse: The ski resort he had been too was the hot zone for the disease in Europe, in part because of the Beer Pong that was very popular among skiers. 

One by one, we got details on his escapades in this Coronavirus Central. He also told us that his German partner had recently lost his sense of smell and taste. 

The next several weeks were tough, I won't deny that. Behind Zvi's back we held a long series of discussions. Some pointed to his irresponsible and hedonistic behavior, others said he could not have known. Zvi, we have to say, was in dager of becoming a Persona Non Grata in our group. 

Now that the fear has receded a bit, the two months have passed have reminded us of Zvi's nice parts, and now we all envy him for being a superhero, and he makes sure to show it like a peacock. Our gang wants to start planning, with hesitation, our annual visit to Greece.

If a new wave doesn't hit, we will soon join Zvi in olive orchards as he roams in his ATV to the sea, with his hair flowing in the wind and the antibodies filling his inoculated and suntanned body. 

The post Like a deer appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

Today I remembered that two months ago, when thousands of people were still hospitalized, celebrities were singing John Lennon songs from theIR fancy castles.

I also remembered that when I was a child, I wanted to have a time machine. I wanted to go back to the 1960s and be a flower child. I wanted to go back to the turn of the last century and join the Zionist movement. I dreamt of revolutions and protest waves.

I dreamt of eras when people believed in grand ideas and noble values. And then I grew up. I discovered that Charles Manson killed Sharon Tate and that the hippies became corporate chiefs. I discovered that in the Land of Israel there were also Palestinians who had been expelled from their lands and wanted statehood.

I am sick and tired of having my dreams dashed, of having authority based on false history; of empty promises on a bright future. "I cannot breathe," African American George Floyd said as he was being arrested by police in the United States, his neck crushed by and officer's knee.

A handful of protesters in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem chanted "An entire nation cannot breathe," in a demonstration following the death of an unarmed Palestinian man in Jerusalem after being shot by Israel police.

Throughout the entire week I have been reading on their brutal death, and on the special police forces that detained three Eritrean youths who had been drinking beer in Tel Aviv. And on the violence against women, which has skyrocketed during the pandemic.

I also read about the fact that in West, people from lower socioeconomic status or minorities have been infected with coronavirus disproportionally.

"They are allowing you to go out of your home," I asked my friends across the sea, as America's cities burn and police cars disperse crowds. And in Israel, things are relatively calm in light of the regime's brutal force, making it all the more chilling.

"Yes, we can go out," some said. Others said, "No, not yet." I hate this new language of ours; the words of obedience; the language of passivity and submission. Perhaps what I hate even more are my complaints on the new authority in my life, which is still limited, probably temporary, and is minuscule compared to the turbulence around the world.

I was reminded of what Edward Said said in his book, Orientalism: "There is nothing mysterious or natural about authority. It is formed, irradiated, disseminated; it is instrumental, it is persuasive; it has status, it establishes canons of taste and value; it is virtually indistinguishable from certain ideas it dignifies as true, and from traditions, perceptions, and judgments it forms, transmits, reproduces.  Above all, authority can, indeed must, be analyzed."

He wrote this call for action, a call for thinking, some 40 years ago. These days, I find it hard not to embrace this deep call instead of its inspiration.

I think the analysis, the criticism, has become much more sophisticated over the years. But authority, its power and apathy, only got more complicated and took on a new form. For me, this is a mystery for which I have yet to have found a solution.

The post Difficulty breathing appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

I turned toward where the familiar sound was coming from. Across from a neighborhood restaurant that has become over the past several months a successful takeaway stand of wine and Mediterranean dishes, my good friend was standing there, in shock.

Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter

In one hand he had a plastic cup with a margarita, and with the other hand he was pointing toward a group of Europeans who were now moving away from us, cycling calmly, as if leaving behind a viral crime scene with a shock victim.

We gathered around our friend and we scrubbed his shaking palm with loads of sanitizer as he retold the horror story. It turned out that while we introduced ourselves to the group that had a common acquaintance with the variety of different gestures that had become the new normal in recent months – ironic bows, elbow touching, and even an embarrassing 'Namaste – the criminal Italian just approached our friend and with a cry of Buongiorno just placed his palm across our friend's face, until the friend succumbed and shook his outstretched hand.

We huddled to consult and then decided, as if we were a flock of parrots, to reassure our horrified friend with the new data: The infection rate in London has been dropping sharply; the curve has plateaued; shaking hands won't lead you to your death knell.

After assessing the situation we continued toward London fields to celebrate the easing of the lockdown with picnics, sunbathing, and hiking, which used to be luxury but are now they are back to being part of what's permitted.

As I enter the park, the incident is all but forgotten. It is hard to admit that after two months of lockdown, some 36,000 people dead and millions unemployed, London's streets are packed.

At least from a privileged point of view.

In this temporary and bizarre universe that has been created between the easing and the paralyzed workplaces, the buses are running again in high frequencies, without charge.

The magic words "click and collect" has breathed a new life to many restaurants. High-end deliveries of Yakitori, hamburgers with truffle aioli, dim sum and rotisserie chicken are now flooding the streets as if they were owls from a Harry Potter book.

Because gyms and brunches are still out, the parks have become the latest exercise venue on weekends, as well as the preferred choice for dating and other meetings (this includes some porn..).

Well-toned women with sports bras practice their kickboxing skills and ripped half-naked men hang upside down from the rings that have been latched onto the branches.

A long queue of happy drinkers gather near the newly opened pubs in the parks, selling fish and chips alongside alcoholic beverages.

Only upon sunset can one hear the echoes of the pandemic once again. Without clubs and bars, the streets empty out, and rather than have party-goers there are drug addicts and homeless. They sit near the ATMs and wait by the supermarkets. They beg for a handout, but their outstretched hand is left empty.

The residents of London are holed up in their homes, avoiding all contact. That's not their fault, of course, that is the order of the day.

Subscribe to Israel Hayom's daily newsletter and never miss our top stories!

The post The order of the day appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

"Immigration is an open wound," my friend told me when she came back to Israel several years ago. I told her I don't like that sentence. I don't agree with it. It is too dramatic, to definitive, and too sad. But now it is pinned to my brain. Perhaps the only way to disassemble it is to write it down here. 

The reason that this sentence keeps popping up is, I assume, the way in which the coronavirus has complicated my perception of borders.

On the one hand, this period has made the world interconnected and fluid like never before. For the first time in my life, I have found myself taking part in conferences, interviews, and speeches, which have become global and simultaneous in ways that only two months were unthinkable. On the other hand, as an immigrant, I have never felt the physical and political firmness of borders more as a result of the shutting down of international travel. 

Throughout all of my 13 years outside Israel, flights, and more than that – the knowledge that they exist – have helped me bridge the emotional and perceptional gap that I have often felt toward life in Israel.

But these days, taking a flight means being in isolation for a month. Two weeks on your way there, and two weeks on your way back. At a time when Israel has already forgotten what coronavirus is, with people in Britain are rebelling against the easing of the lockdown, I have never felt Israel being farther away from me, both geographically and mentally. 

It has become distant, but familiar. I want to travel to Israel, but I am afraid to do so. This period has intensified the conflicting feelings I always have ahead of a visit to Israel: missing my friends antifamily alongside a fear that perhaps there is a big disconnect after a long time away; my concern on whether we will be able to bridge the gap in one fell swoop; will I feel at home or in some foreign land?

The tension exists ahead of every visit, but this time it is debilitating. From afar, I look at the newspapers, the social media, and the conversations taking place in Israel. I try to understand what's awaiting me here: a sun-speckled paradise whose residents celebrate as if there is no disease or a country where a pandemic has destroyed the democratic notion of its traumatized citizens thanks to its glorified leader and his dozens of ministers? 

I am overdramatizing this. I make up stories in order to buy time. To avoid crossing borders on a flight that I can't describe. I make things up in order to avoid moving from one home to another home, which may have changed a bit. In order to avoid this unnerving feeling in which the term "home" is suspended from both worlds, two countries and two experiences, including in times when flights operate normally. 

The post Very far, but close appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.