April 1st
Now is not the time for April fool
jokes, but we do enjoy the often funny and hilarious posts on Facebook and
Whatsapp.
Today, it took longer than usually to
know if we were supposed to deliver or not. The balagan at City Hall is greater
than ever due to the in-fighting, lack/refusal of cooperation between departments
and the approaching Pesach Holidays. Around 11 a.m. we got the green light from
Kochava to come and pick up 260 meals – one for Ramot and one for Kiryat
Menachem.
On our way into the center, we were
stopped by a policeman whom we proudly showed our permit. “What are you to each
other? Married?” He wrote down my ID number and reminded us of the regulations:
give no rides to neighbours or people not of your household!
The skeleton crew of three Hineni volunteers
had been working very hard this morning, judging from the row of ready meals
that were waiting on the table for us to deliver.
It was a tight fit in the
car, but we didn’t want having to come back again for the next batch.
Tomorrow around noon the articles
for the Pesach boxes are supposed to arrive and Benjamin wants to start
preparing them immediately. We won’t have time to be bored the coming days,
that is for sure!
The address in Ramot was known and
we found it without the help of Waze.
Ilana sounded stressed, like so
many people responsible for the welfare of the elderly they care for.
Kiryat Menachem was a new address,
thankfully easy to find.
The community center of this low-income neighborhood was
empty of people, except for two secretaries. Ori, the man in charge, asked if
we could help them deliver the meals to the individual people on their list
(150!)
“Sorry, no,” I told him. “We pick
up the meals from the kitchen and deliver them bulk, and that’s it.” He looked
as if he had a challenge on his hand now... Well, that was his problem now.
There was enough to do at home: finalizing
the Hebrew/Russian Hineni flyer that had to be added to the Pesach packages and
keeping up with the blog posts; and Facebook; and so many other little things. Indeed,
we don’t have time to become bored!
Even though the number of infected
people is still on the rise, Israel is perceived as one of the ‘safest’
countries to be during this crisis.
Last Tuesday, Israelis donated more
than NIS 1.2 million ($340,000) to help the 4-year-old twins who were orphaned
when their mother Tamar Peretz-Levi died earlier in the day from the
coronavirus. The sum was donated on JGive for the children in less than nine
hours, according to the Ynet news site, as fundraisers targeted NIS 1.8 million
($500,000) in a month. The initiative was put together by residents of Lod and
the mayor of the central city, where Peretz-Levi was from.
And on a personal note: when I told
our landlord that we could only pay 2/3 of the rent money, he said that was
o.k. with him. Half an hour later he called, telling us they wanted us to pay
nothing at all for the time being, and see how things would develop in the
coming month. That, dear friends, is the HEART of Israel!
