“Stay at home, stay alive” says an information campaign run by Israel’s Ministry of Health to prepare the country’s Muslim community for the month of Ramadan, which begins April 23. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim lunar calendar, observed by Muslims all around the world, including Israel’s 1.6 Muslim citizens. Throughout this month, Muslims refrain from eating, drinking and smoking from sunrise to sunset. Many observant Muslims get together hours before the fast begins for a pre-dawn suhur meal and a chance to eat one last time before sunrise. Some Arab towns and villages still follow the maseharati tradition, in which a designated person wanders the streets and alleyways to wake people up for this meal. While the custom is slowly disappearing from Israel’s towns and villages, it still remains common throughout much of the Arab world.

Everyone realizes that Ramadan 2020 is going to be different from any other Ramadan. During this month, night becomes day and day becomes night. Extended families gather together to break their fast with a series of rituals including the iftar meal with all sorts of sweets, taraweeh prayers in the mosques and special events lasting until dawn. Under normal circumstances, it is even customary to do the daily shopping at night. This year, however, as a result of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the holiday will be spent largely at home. Saudi Arabia recently announced that it would suspend the taraweeh prayers in its mosques and asked people to recite them at home instead. 

Israel’s Muslim community is following suit. “We will not be holding the taraweeh prayers this year,” the imam of a mosque in the town of Baqa al-Gharbiyye told Al-Monitor. “This is going to be a different kind of Ramadan. Unfortunately, we will not see people paying visits to their family, nor will we see large iftar meals. Everyone will be sitting at home instead. This is not the Ramadan that we are used to. It is not the Ramadan that we know.”

There is no doubt that Ramadan in the shadow of the pandemic poses an enormous challenge to the authorities. Everyone is banging their heads against the wall, trying to figure out how to get people to avoid large gatherings for meals, shopping and other traditional ways of celebrating the occasion. “We will mark Ramadan differently this year. We will stay at home and celebrate it with the nuclear family living at home with us. We don’t want to let the coronavirus defeat us because we want to celebrate Ramadan again next year. We therefore call on everyone to follow the special directives of the Ministry of Health for the month of Ramadan,” said Dr. Zahi Said, the Health Ministry’s spokesperson to the Arab community in a conversation with Al-Monitor.