Sukkot During Lockdown

Everyone has an "only in Israel" story, here is Kayla's story:

Lockdown has been tough for everyone, especially olim in Israel without families here in the country.

Last year, when they announced the country’s second lockdown during the holidays, my roommate and I were pretty down on not being able to spend Sukkot with our families in America. We realized that we would have to spend the holiday alone in Tel Aviv, without a sukkah, a tradition we keep every year.

When the news came out, two of our non-religious Israeli friends were over for dinner and saw how down the news had made us. They were going home to their families for the whole lockdown and knew that we couldn’t go home with them for three weeks.

The next day, we had a knock on our door. It was our two completely secular Israeli friends, who had stayed up all night to make us a miniature sukkah of our own, to sit on our table. They built it out of chopsticks, origami, and plastic straws! It may not have been a real sukkah, but the spirit of the holiday will definitely be with us this Sukkot!

Only in Israel do your completely secular Israeli friends care enough about your holiday spirits to spend hours on an art project for you! The people of Israel are truly one of a kind!