Why Is Tel Aviv’s Carmel Market Closed While Supermarkets Stay Open? | Eater

"A century-old outdoor food bazaar in Tel Aviv’s Yemenite Quarter, this compact, ragged assembly of stalls is normally a pre-dawn cacophony of produce deliveries, fishmongers filleting amberjack and snapper, hawkers frying falafel, and long-standing specialist vendors—from a butcher selling locally raised lamb chops to a loquat seller and a cheesemonger offering family-made feta for generations. After a government order to close open-air markets during the COVID-19 crisis, the usually lively lanes became eerily quiet and unusually clean, with police patrolling and many vendors’ livelihoods decimated. The author, who relies on the market as a daily social and professional touchstone, argues that the open-air setting allows for self-determined distancing and safer shopping than enclosed supermarkets and describes a resilient vendor community adapting through clandestine WhatsApp networks, side-street stalls enforcing strict spacing, masked regulars, latex-gloved employees selecting produce, and ongoing faith that a market that has weathered terror alerts, missile threats, inflation, and recession will rebound." - Adeena Sussman