Corona Hotel

How does a young Israeli kollel couple with very little income and four young children get to spend Yom Kippur and Sukkos, all expenses paid, in a hotel on the shores of the Kinneret?

Welcome to the upside-down world of Corona, where amongst all the trauma of quarantining, schools closing, sick people, and all our other worries, something pleasant sometimes happens. A young woman, Chaya, who lives in Afula in northern Israel with her husband and four children, spent Sukkos in a hotel. She was so enthusiastic about the experience that I asked her to share it with the readers of the WWW. Here is her story.

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Before Yom Kippur, both my husband Yaakov and I started to feel sick. We soon realized that we had Corona. We both felt awful at the same time, and it was very difficult to manage with the four children. Our Kupat Cholim offered us the opportunity to go to a hotel. They wanted to place us in Yerushalayim, but we wanted a hotel with space for the children to play outside. Yaakov asked if we could go to the Kinor near the Kinneret. At first they said there was no room because everyone wanted to go there, but then they said that they had space.

This was all arranged on the Friday before Yom Kippur, but it was too close to Shabbos to go then. Right after Shabbos, they called and asked how long we needed to get ready. I said we need an hour. I rushed around the house, packing whatever I thought we would need. We brought summer clothes and winter clothes, paper goods, canned food, bikes, and scooters. We did not know what would be provided, so we took the whole household.

At the exact time that they said they would come, two big yellow ambulances arrived at our door. I went in one ambulance with two kids, and Yaakov went in the other one with two kids. There were no windows, and the ride was very bumpy, making one of my children nauseous, so the trip was not too pleasant.

When we walked into the hotel, people rushed over to say hello and told us that a bar mitzva was taking place and we should come and enjoy the food. People urged us to take off our masks. They were not necessary here because everyone there was already sick.

The place was absolutely full. There were about 500 people: many big families and lots and lots of children. We had two big adjoining rooms. Next to us was a family with 10 children with three rooms. My children made friends with their children right away and were busy playing with them the whole time.

We were past the worst part of the sickness, so this was really a vacation for me. There were no distancing restrictions, and the children could play all day both inside and outside. The grounds were beautiful, although we could not go to the Kinneret because there was a fence around the hotel. All our food was prepared in the kitchen, and we went to pick it up for each meal and ate it in our rooms. Each member of the family got a huge bag of food, including two rolls per person. That meant that we had 30 rolls a day. We couldn’t possibly eat that much and there was no refrigerator, so we had to throw away the leftovers.

On Yom Kippur, there was a minyan for chasidim, one for Sefardim, and one for Litvacks. Yaakov davened in the Litvack minyan. For Sukkos they had a big sukkah for everyone, although some families bought their own as we did. On Simchas Torah, the hakafos were lively and fun, with a second set of hakafos on Motzei Yom Tov.

I enjoyed relaxing and shmoozing with the other women. The only task I had to do besides watching my children was the laundry. They had six washing machines but only one drier, so Yaakov hung a line to hang the clothes to dry. Sometimes there were shiurim or exercise and dancing classes for the ladies, depending on who was at the hotel at a given time. For example, if there was a dance instructor, she would provide classes for the women. The men were busy learning in a kollel, and the children had tons of kids to play with.

People were allowed to stay for 13 days after they tested positive. Kupat Cholim provides a letter to release you, and then the transportation picks up the family up and takes them home. Sometimes it did not work so smoothly, because if one spouse was in the hospital, he or she might be released at a different time from the rest of the family. For example, over Simchas Torah, there was a family where the father was not released because he had been in the hospital, and the mother and her four children were sent home by themselves. 

All in all, we had a wonderful, stress-free vacation. We have a lot of hakaras hatov to the government, which arranged this Corona hotel. It was an enjoyable and helpful experience for us.