The ripple effects of Israel’s lockdown

TALI FEINBERG

This rule will be reviewed in two weeks’ time, but it has already led to droves of community members cancelling trips, family gatherings, and simchas (celebrations) in Israel, and schools, youth movements, and travel agencies putting tours on hold.

The Israeli Embassy in South Africa’s deputy ambassador, Ayellet Black, says that travellers will have to “demonstrate their ability to enter a 14-day home quarantine in Israel. Home quarantine should be at a relative, friend’s house, or their own home. It excludes hotels and other facilities. Upon arrival at Ben Gurion Airport, the full details of the home quarantine must be given to border control. All consular services, including visas, require prior communication with the consular department at the embassy.”

The Times of Israel also reported that, “In its guidelines on the new restrictions, the health ministry said that tourists already in the country would ‘be given time to leave Israel in an orderly manner in coming days’. It didn’t specify the date they must leave by.”

In spite of this, there isn’t a cessation of flights to Israel. EL AL Chief Executive Gonen Usishkin told the SA Jewish Report that “EL AL has a huge responsibility in maintaining air routes to and from Israel during emergencies, for passengers and cargo, and will therefore continue to operate flights to the United States, Canada, Europe, and Africa according to demand and need.”

However, he says the airline will make adjustments to its flight schedule. It allows customers holding tickets that start their journey up to 30 April 2020 to postpone or freeze their tickets for departure until 28 February 2021 free of charge, change, or handling fees subject to changes in airline ticket prices.

The travel ruling is having a dramatic ripple effect. “I’m sitting in limbo. I’m getting married on 30 April, and my entire family as well as some of my fiancée’s family are coming from overseas,” says a former Capetonian who lives in Israel who asked to remain anonymous. “No one knows what will happen in a few weeks’ time, which leaves us having to be patient and hopeful that things will change. However if they don’t, we will have to postpone our wedding to a future unknown date.”

She works for a hotel chain with more than 15 hotels spread out over the country. “Groups, individual tourist rooms, and most surprisingly, Israeli guests, have a 100% cancellation rate,” she says. “Most of our hotels were full for Pesach. What this translates to is a drastic reduction of working hours, hotels closing for a few months, and staff either going on unpaid leave or being let go.”

“Our plans are a mess,” says Vanessa Raphaely, who was planning to visit family in Israel with her children near the end of March. “Airbnb is offering a full refund, but Turkish Airways is asking us to wait two days and offering a change only this year and no refund, which doesn’t help us as this was the only time we could go.”

Some are choosing to wait and see. “We are supposed to go to Israel for most of April with lots of friends and family. We’re probably going to cancel our trip, but it depends on whether the airline grants us refunds and whether the quarantine is lifted by the time we’re supposed to fly,” says Dalya Abromowitz.

David Hotz says that family from Australia and South Africa were going to meet in Israel for a Barmitzvah and Pesach. “Half the family have pulled out of a month-long trip. A few, including the Barmitzvah boy, are waiting to see what happens.”

Leigh Creswick had a family wedding at the end of March, “and cousins from all over the world have had to cancel”.

Tammi Forman has two sons in Israel, and was due to fly there for Pesach on 2 April with her third son, Sam, who is in Grade 11. “We were advised to cancel by our doctor as Sam is on immunosuppressant therapy. I did consider risking quarantine to see our boys and be together, but on the doctor’s advice, we have cancelled.”

Schools are also dealing with the fallout. United Herzlia Schools says three exchange programmes – Diller Teen Fellows, Partnership 2Gether, and Galilee Dreamers – have been cancelled by Israel’s education ministry, and “at this time, our pupils and staff won’t travel to Israel on school programmes”.

King David Schools General Director Rabbi Craig Kacev confirmed the cancellation of the exchange programmes. In addition, the Momentum trip for mothers in May is cancelled. The Partnership school teachers’ trip to Israel in May is under consideration. The King David Sandton teacher trip is going ahead as a decision will be made closer to the time. The King David/ORT Hatter education conference for life science teachers has been cancelled.

Yeshiva College’s Gavin Price says: “We have teachers who were due to travel to Israel on a school twinning programme and a student programme – Kafar – that is organised for the end of the year. Unfortunately, we will need to review sending delegates to Israel for the twinning programme, but will wait before making a decision on our Kafar Programme at the end of the year.”

The measures have even had an impact on the South African Union of Jewish Students (SAUJS) campaign against upcoming Israel Apartheid Week. “Coronavirus has obviously caused unplanned obstacles for all parties involved. However, SAUJS has a fantastic campaign that will be going ahead as planned, and we look forward to transforming this hate-filled and aggressive week into one of education and dialogue,” says SAUJS National Chairperson Kayla Ginsberg.

It’s also a nightmare for youth movements. Habonim Dror Mazkira Nina Reitenberg says the organisation’s 10 gap-year participants are currently confined to the Kiryat Moriah campus in Jerusalem along with 240 other youngsters from around the world, and have been asked not to leave Israel at this time.

“Our big concern is Shorashim, our three-week Israel trip for Grade 10s in July, for which there is already massive interest. We are still assuming it will happen. We are monitoring the situation regularly, and are in close touch with the embassy.”

Ari Chipkin, the programme co-ordinator of Diller Teen Fellows, says, “The biggest impact for Diller has been the cancellation of the Jewish Community Mifgash in which 16 Israeli groups travel to partner communities around the world. Staff and participants are obviously disappointed. However, the South African staff is working closely with an international leadership team on alternatives.”

Meanwhile, EL AL’s Usishkin has asked the South African Jewish community to “continue to support us in these trying times, now more than ever, until we overcome this global crisis”.