Ultra-Orthodox Jews in the empty Mahane Yehuda market on the Eve of Yom Kippur in Jerusalem
West Jerusalem’s open-air market should be alive with haggling merchants and the occasional thunk of a cleaver on a slab of beef.
Instead, the Mahane Yehuda Shuk has a moribund atmosphere as Israel enters its third week of a second, nationwide lockdown. Many of the shops are closed, and only a smattering of masked people weave through the maze of fruit, meat and spice stalls.
“The situation is really bad,” admits Yoram Ben David, a spice seller. “Today it should be packed, but it’s deserted. We are doing our best to comply with the rules, but people have seen the reports in the media about the situation worsening and they stay away.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, had won plaudits for swiftly locking down Israel in March and driving daily infection rates to single digits.
But Mr Netanyahu now admits he reopened the country too quickly, triggering a severe second wave of the virus which has seen up to 9,000 infections per day and forced him to declare another lockdown.
It is yet another headache for the embattled prime minister, who has been the focal point of mass anti-government protests and is standing trial for corruption charges.
Mahane Yehuda is supposed to be home turf for the Right-wing Likud party leader; one could say the merchants are to him what black cab drivers are to Boris Johnson.
People wearing protective face masks shop at the Mahane Yehuda market ahead of the Rosh Hashana holiday lockdown in Jerusalem
Credit: Shutterstock
But even here there are concerns that Mr Netanyahu has presided over a coronavirus catastrophe.
"All my life I voted Likud, but I will tell you openly that we don’t have a leader anymore," Mr David says.
“I see my government, my parliament, and it makes me sick. Instead of dealing with the problems of the people they are arguing and only looking after their own careers.”
He adds that the compensation for ailing merchants is barely enough to keep them afloat, especially as the paperwork to request the funds is so cumbersome.
Though Mr David says his sales are down by 75 per cent, he is still one of the lucky ones. A vendor of dry spices, he doesn’t need to worry about stock rotting away while customers shun the markets.
"Another reason so many shops are closed is that last time people were throwing away stock because people weren’t buying," he explains.
Curious to find out where all his customers had gone, Mr David peeked into a nearby supermarket and saw it was "packed." This baffled him as the open-air market, he reasons, is surely safer than the confines of Israel’s small, indoor supermarkets.
On the other side of the market, fruit vendor Abraham Levy is also struggling.
Shoppers wearing protective masks amid the COVID-19 pandemic walk past stalls at the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem
Credit: AFP
To reduce crowding, the merchants’ table space for stock has been restricted. It means Mr Levy’s apricots, plums and grapes all have to be squeezed onto two tables at the back of his stall.
"It’s understandable that people are afraid to come, it’s important they look after their health," he says.
Also a passionate Likud supporter, Mr Levy proudly displays a portrait of Likud founder Menachem Begin above his fruit stand. But even his goodwill has its limits.
“During the first wave, he [Netanyahu] was great, he managed to stop it. But then during the second wave, he opened everything too fast,” says the 70-year-old, a stalwart of Mahane Yehuda whose opinion will carry weight with the prime minister.
However, Mr Levy remains loyal to the man known here as "Bibi", invoking a local proverb that warns you should never exchange a horse for donkey. “He is a good horse,” he says fondly.
Much like during the first lockdown, opinion in Israel is divided as to who should carry the blame for the second wave.
While Mr Netanyahu has faced intense criticism, the ultra-orthodox community has again been accused of flouting the new rules by refusing to wear face masks and gathering for large funerals and weddings.
On the Monday that followed the Telegraph’s visit to Mahane Yehua, Israeli police broke up an illegal mass funeral organised by the ultra-orthodox community.
But Nadav Am Shalom, a 25-year-old engineering student, thinks all sides should carry some responsibility.
“I see a lot of people breaking the rules, but the government has made a lot of irrational decisions,” he says. “One day they would issue new instructions and then cancel them the day after. It has been difficult to follow all the details.”
Mahane Yehuda sits on the edge of Mea She’arim, a sprawling ultra-orthodox Jewish neighborhood where large families live in cramped, densely built homes.
The streets are far more crowded than the Shuk, but most people are wearing face masks and only a handful of older men are venturing outside without them.
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men carry Lulav or Palm branches, used during the celebration of Sukkot, the Feast of the Tabernacles, in the Ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim
Credit: Abit Sultan/ EPA
In recent weeks, the government’s decision to outlaw mass protests has injected more tension into Jerusalem, where thousands have been gathering outside Mr Netanyahu’s official residence to demand his resignation.
And despite the alarmingly high rate of infections, some of the protesters believe the new law is a cynical ploy to stamp out public opposition to the Prime Minister.
"He should not be telling us what to do," said Sadi Ben Shtrit, one anti-Netanyahu activist. "I will keep protesting. They will have to arrest me and drag me away.”
Another protester, Emma Maghen Tokatly, said Mr Netanyahu was resorting to any means possible to distract Israelis from his own political crisis, including the lockdown.
“He is desperate to ban protests but it has nothing to do with coronavirus,” she says, claiming that Israel’s recent peace deals with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates were rushed through to bolster Mr Netanyahu’s credibility.
“It was a really good step in the direction of legitimacy for Israel, but now is not the time,” she adds.
Mr Netanyahu denies all the criminal allegations, dismissing them as a politicised witch hunt.
With Israel set to remain in lockdown for many more weeks, the government has warned that it will have to reopen the country gradually, having learned from the errors of the first wave.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have been deployed to tackle the virus, setting up two wards in the port city of Haifa, amid warnings that hospitals could soon be overwhelmed.
“We are in a much worse situation than we were in the first wave,” said Professor Michael Edelstein, a British-Israeli epidemiologist at Bar Ilan University.
“If people don’t comply with the rules, then we are just going to go in and out of these lockdowns."
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