They just yesterday announced that synagogues could reopen with up to 50 people at a time, social distancing, masks, etc, (and that each synagogue has to appoint an official person in charge of “virus defence.” Jogging this morning, I ran by a minyan at a shul which was open but had people overflowing onto the street since they couldn’t fit as many people inside. i might not have even noticed were it not for the sound of the davening (praying), a loud mizrachi sounding prayer which at first caught me off guard, almost like the muezzin muslim call to prayer but close, right in my ears as i ran by. For an instant I caught two of the hebrew words then it faded behind me. It made me think how this virus has made the culture of prayer more visible, less hidden away inside buildings, more a part of the landscape of sight and sound in the city. It ever so briefly set my clean and tidy American sensibilities on edge. The physical spaces here are smaller so that the entire 2 second episode was more pushed out in your face; this public display of loud but somewhat random religion overflowing onto the shared pedestrian street where I was jogging. In this most American of Israeli cities, it reminded me that we are in the middle east.
