“It was right at the start of COVID-19 when I got a call from a city council member. He sounded worried and told me in a very stern tone of voice: ‘The situation isn’t good. We need to act fast.’
There are two community administrations in Ramot: one ultra-Orthodox and one secular. So in the ultra-Orthodox administration, we set up a neighborhood Situation Room. We created a call center and advertised it all over the neighborhood. But we didn’t just pass on instructions, we also asked questions: ‘Are you missing food? Do you need to go out to get medicine? Does any family member need to leave for isolation but you’re concerned about it? Are you worried that one of your children has contracted the virus? Talk to us.’
And they did. We entered all the reach-outs we received into an improvised Excel sheet and worked accordingly – this family needed a food delivery, that family needed help getting to the quarantine hotel, they needed medicine and we needed to check the situation in that building.
We saw that when a sudden crisis hits, two things happen: on the one hand everyone wants to help, but on the other hand, there’s so much chaos that it’s not always clear how. For example, how do we know where to send all the food boxes we had gathered? Who needs them? Who doesn’t? And is food really the thing that’s missing?
It demonstrated the Community Administration’s abilities and its important role in creating fast links to community representatives in the neighborhood. AT a time when everyone was trying to find a way to help, we found it.
We went through all the traffic light model’s colors here in Ramot: Green, orange and red. As we moved between emergency, routine and emergency routine, one thing remained constant: in order to deal with COVID-19, we had to keep our community involved.
And then the IDF Home Front Command called. ‘The neighborhood is turning red again,’ they told me. ‘There’s no alternative. We’re coming in.’ It’s not normal for military personnel to fill up ultra-Orthodox streets in our neighborhood. So we consulted the neighborhood rabbi, asking him what the right way to do this would be. ‘How do we explain this to the community?’
The rabbi recommended updating the residents so that they would be informed about what was about to happen. So we gathered the neighborhood rabbis (including some who don’t even recognize the State of Israel) and explained to them that because the situation was bad, the IDF Home Front Command would be coming in.
They passed the message on to residents. We gave people a bit of time to process it, and 24 hours later, almost 200 IDF soldiers entered into the neighborhood. It went smoothly, thanks to our coordination and cooperation.
That was just the beginning of our collaboration. To be able to help, the Home Front Command needed to partner with the community. For example, they asked us what the vulnerable areas in the neighborhood are, and so we immediately knew to send them to the bus stations to meet families and individuals travelling outside the neighborhood or the city, or those coming back from a family visit. We went down to the bus stations together. We told residents what was going on, explained and asked that they go back home.
After a few days, the Home Front Command continued on to Har Nof and then to other neighborhoods in Jerusalem. But I think that both our neighborhood and the military gained something from this challenging period – a lesson in collaboration.”