Israel’s middle class sags as aid package delayed
Young Israelis and the country's middle class are facing the biggest economic crisis Israel has ever experienced as the pandemic's second wave crashes.
Yair Di Castro, owner of an Israeli travel agency specializing in tourism to Italy and a father of five, is waging a fight against the government on Facebook in an effort to save the once-flourishing business he established 23 years ago.
He writes piercing, painful posts about the thousands of business owners and salaried works abandoned to their fate since the government restricted travel to fight the coronavirus but failed to provide them with a security net.
On June 24, Di Castro filmed a personal appeal to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The video went viral, making him a symbol of the collapse of Israel’s middle class in the shadow of the pandemic.
Di Castro lashed out at Netanyahu and demanded that he take responsibility for the dire plight into which he and his fellow Israelis have been plunged, just as a battlefield commander would do. “Shalom Commander Netanyahu,” Di Castro said. “We are soldiers in a war that you have described as the ‘corona war’ and we are bleeding, and you, sir, our commander, do not give a damn. … The skies are closed, and you as the commander must take care of me and of us, otherwise we will bleed to death and our blood will be on your hands.”
