ISAACS FAMILY NEWSLETTER – CoronaVirus edition Pesach / April 2020

Crazy, claustrophobic, unprecedented times. All clichés apply. A health disaster. An economic tsunami. And we ask ourselves, is the government over-reacting or under-reacting? Will the pandemic last a month or a year? Is Covid19 divine retribution? Is it a wake-up call for a society that has becoming self-serving, unrestrained and profit-driven, and lost all respect for Nature? Will Corona change society or will it end as a tiny blip in the history of the world? Who the hell knows? So instead of pondering purposelessly, here’s a family update, although in the mood of the times, it is not particularly funny.

Seder Pesach – Home from Home

Every year we spend Pesach (Passover) with my mother-in-law. This year we moved in early while inter-city travel was still permitted, and may stay beyond Pesach depending on what happens with shul, school, social interaction and travel restrictions. We keep a safe distance from Barbara who, in her eighties, wisely keeps herself to herself. She stays upstairs and we are downstairs. We converse on the phone and by shouting whenever she emerges on her balcony. On seder night we arranged to meet at 8.30 for Ma Nishtana. It felt like Romeo serenading his Juliet. The irony of spending Pesach, the festival of freedom, under lockdown was lost on none.

Working From Home (WFH)

On February 5^th, after extensive research and a lengthy pilot, my company Amdocs, issued a press release proudly announcing that from now on the company’s 5,000 Israeli employees would be allowed to work from home for one day a week, subject to small print concocted by a legal department skilled at ensuring the company commits to nothing it can’t get out of. Three weeks later, all 5,000 employees are working from home five days a week – and the company is functioning just fine thank you.

For over two years I WFH (Worked From Home – learn that acronym because I won’t repeat it again) for a company Amdocs purchased in Silicon valley. I spent all day on Zoom before Zoom became a household name. So take it from the expert. For WFH to succeed you need four things: Reliable broadband, grownup children, personal discipline (some don’t work; some don’t stop working) and a lock on the fridge.

Judy – Zooming From Home

For several years already, Judy has been teaching one of her open university computers course by Zoom. With the cancellation of all frontal courses, attendance at her Zoom session has spiked from 30 to 300 students. Judy is about 70% on holiday and as you know by now, famed for active recreation, exploiting every spare hour for trips to the beach, parks and nature trails, and basketball. With all these gone, Judy is taking life easy for a bit, quite uncharacteristically.

Ari and Elisheva – Entrepreneuring from Home

For months Ari has been pushing Elisheva (15) to team up with him on a new business venture. Now with some time on their hands, it’s happening. Elisheva is teaching herself to build websites and learning “Python”, which, despite its intimidating name, is a harmless, non-toxic high-level programming language. Ari and Elisheva spend hours on video calls. Perhaps video chat is the Corona-induced “garage” where from now on start-ups will be born. Perhaps the same CovId19 that threatens to kill hundreds of young companies, will trigger ideas for some new ones.

Elon – Learning from Home

After changing the focus of his business from selling magic to becoming a performing magician and succeeding superbly in his first months, Corona has brought Elon’s business to a total standstill. He is exploiting the time to master new tricks that extend his repertoire. He has mastered a bunch of card tricks which astounded me. But card tricks are considered old school, like grammatical English and books. Magicians hardly use them anymore.

Leetal, Elon’s bride of four months, is fortunate enough to be WFH. But then, as you may recall, she also works at Amdocs. Proof that it’s not only my job that can be executed more or less normally from home.

Naphtali - Workaholism from the Office (subtitled “Work 1: Corona: 0”)

It would take more than a life-threatening pandemic to halt or even slow down Naphtali’s pace of work. As an employee of a very small start-up he is actually still allowed to drive (or rather scoot on his electric scooter) to the office. Corona has induced the company to move to shifts to accommodate parents with young children. His hours now are from 6.30am till 6pm. Naphtali’s wife Adi who works at Ben Gurion airport is our barometer for the resuscitation of international flights. She is currently on leave but may return to part-time work next month. I will let you know when it’s time to book your summer hols abroad.

Orly - Working From two Homes

Orly has moved around quite a lot this last month. When her WFH order came through, she set up office in our house, together with me, Judy and Elisheva. Later she moved her WFH office o her own home. Meantime her employer reduced all employees to 70%, then bumped them back up to 100% and a few days later cut them all again, this time to 60%. Orly’s husband Chen is an “essential worker” and has been WFO (Working From the Office) every day. While I am proud my son-in-law does “essential” work, it rattles me that the country considers my 11-hour days of lesser import.

Abigail - Tick-Tocking from Home

Abigail was unceremoniously laid off from her national service from Day 1 of the crisis. She is literally dancing through these times devoting hours every day to “tick-tock”. For those without young girls, let me explain. Tick Tock is a social media channel with over 800 million users in which girls (99% of users are girls) video-record themselves dancing 15 second-long clips of popular tunes. Then other girls mimic those dances, and so it goes round and round. Abigail has posted over 50 video clips of her dancing in the last few weeks, which I am proud to say, due to her modesty, are visible only to her sister Elisheva and her best friend. This is what our Rabbis mean when they talk about doing things “לשמה – meaning for specific purpose and not for any side benefit – but I doubt our Rabbis would be very pleased at me applying their principle to Tick Tock.

Abigail grabbed me last night and asked me to help her with a “switch” clip. If I get her permission, I will share it with you. Teaser. Her friends think I am the coolest Dad in the world.

Exercising from Home

Research published here estimated that 50% of the population will put on 5-7 kilos during the lockdown. Ever since I put an end to my running career (or rather ever since my left foot put an end to my running career), I have grown to enjoy the easy life with minimal amounts of sweating and showering balanced by maximum amounts of lazing around.

However, Judy, Orly, Abigail and Elisheva are resolute to beat the statistics. Every day they set aside 30 minutes for an intensive aerobic workout. Accompanied by blaring music, they jump, squat, lift, push, stretch and squeeze, ending up with lots of wheezing, perspiring and very red faces. I am full of admiration for them, but not that full that I am tempted to join.

Stay safe and healthy.

Michael, Judy and the Isaacs family

Elkana