Five thoughts on the situation

1.The most fascinating periods in history were filled with tumult and upheaval - and art. Tales of treachery, greed and chaos provide compelling reading and fuels the imagination. So it is now, too. Songwriters, playwrights, artists and bored school kids are currently in forced confinement, but they are not in hibernation.

I love the rollicking, raucous, irreverent humour and the explosion of creativity that is running riot in homes, on the screen and across social media. It is everywhere, around the clock. Music, cartoons, lessons, video clips, quizzes and visual art of all description. Despite the restrictions in movement, across the world and across the age divide, people are letting their talent and imagination go berserk. The virus might be keeping us indoors; but good humour is taking the emergency exit door, and this virus cannot stop us from having a good belly laugh. This laughter is our panacea, and it is here to stay. As Walt Disney famously said: laughter is timeless, imagination has no age, dreams are forever.

2. Gratitude lists. God, I hate them. I hate the thought of trivialising my aches and pains with an itemised list of my lucky stars and how happy I am, in fact – or should be. But if there’s one thing I do feel eternally grateful for, it is that Donald Trump is not the commander-in-chief of the country where I live. It is hard to imagine a more unfitting leader at a time such as this. Just now when we need leaders to put partisan politics aside, we find that he is even more of what he has always been: a self-serving, vindictive philistine; a hypocritical operator and inveterate liar who exemplifies the most disagreeable traits of politics. I watch his press briefings at the White House and thank Jehovah for the good fortune of living in Australia. At the time of writing, he has still not fired his health expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who clings steadfastly to science and facts – two things for which Trump has nothing but disdain. Watch this space.

3. A few days ago, Jews all over the world, marked Passover and recounted the story of the exodus. It has some good yarns in it about plagues, miracles and baking. There’s even bondage in the story, if that’s your thing. It is marked with a grand banquet, called a seder, which, traditionally, families and friends eat together. A bit like Christmas dinner, but with out all the tragedies. Prior to this year's seder, Israelis were begged, threatened and warned to practise social distancing. Prime Minister Netanyahu, fondly known by his nickname Bibi, turned to the country’s citizenry on television, gazed at them directly and exhorted families to stay put. “If you have a son at university, a daughter in the army or grandparents living elsewhere, they are to stay away,” he pleaded. Most Israelis complied. And so, this year, relatives and friends gathered around the table in a virtual get-together using Zoom. 

Consequently, Grandparents were barred from attending; students remained in their flatshare; soldiers stayed in their army base. For those who were not connected to the internet it was a very solitary Passover night. For some elderly people, this may have been their last seder night. 

But rules are rules. 

So, who did not comply with the isolation decree? 

Astonishingly, it was Bibi himself. He invited his son to the prime minister’s lodge, to keep him company. Who else flouted the social-distancing law? It was none other than our beloved President, fondly known as Ruby, who also decided that the rule did not apply to him; his daughter, her partner and the grandchildren arrived to keep him company over the Passover meal.

A 103-year-old Jerusalem resident preparing for seder night
on her own. Are you listening, Netanyahu?

The following day, a handful of Israelis demonstrated outside a parliamentarian’s home (on a matter I will not go into here). The police arrived and randomly apprehended demonstrators. One of them recorded the events as they unfolded. The video clip shows him receiving an on-the-spot fine of 5000 IS ($2100) for defying the social isolation decree. This, in itself is astonishing, since the clip shows the demonstrators keeping a safe distance from each other. But the demonstrator asks: “The Prime Minister and the President were caught flouting the decrees which they themselves had passed and they remain untouched, so, where’s the justice?” The famous French poet, Jean de la Fontaine, offers an answer in his fable, The Plague stricken Animals: “Depending on whether you are rich or wretched, the Court will judge you black or white.” All the rest is commentary. 

4.  It was bound to happen. And indeed, it has. I am referring to price gouging. Jacking up prices on essential items during the coronavirus – or any – crisis is, not to put too fine a word on it, repugnant. It should be outlawed. Regrettably, it's not. Wherever there’s fear or anxiety and a shortage, there will always be a rotten apple to abuse the panic and exploit the shortage. Yesterday, I did my hebdomadal grocery shopping in my local shopping centre. Standing behind a makeshift glass-cabinet was a young woman selling face masks and hand-sanitisers. You would need to have been hiding under a rock in Tristan da Cunha not to know that there is a huge shortage of these items in supermarkets these days – much of it to do with panic buying (read: plain stupidity). The sanitiser was going for $30 for 300 ml. That constitutes a hike of anywhere between 43% to 150% of the price of a similar product in any of the run-of-the-mill supermarkets. A rip-off, if ever I saw one. But there is worse, much worse: on eBay price gouging is absolutely rampant. Yesterday, in South Australia, a man walked into supermarket store for a refund on 150 units of 32-pack toilet paper and 150 one-litre bottle sanitisers. He had stockpiled these with the intention of making a quick (read: huge) profit online. To his dismay, eBay responded by closing down his account. Now he’d like to return the products and get his money back. In Yiddish we call it chutzpah.

[In a statement on its website, eBay writes: We're aware of reports that some sellers are charging unfair or unreasonable prices […] we're blocking or removing many of these items from our marketplace. Which only goes to show that even big companies can sometimes do the right thing.]

5.  Do a kind thing today. Buy coffee from your local café owner who’s doing it tough. Invite someone to meet on Zoom and share a thought/ joke/ crossword with. Anything, really. And while we’re at it, does anyone know what word the letters RALAOEINT are an anagram of?