It all began on the afternoon of July 17. A group of Israel’s leading chefs forced the government to overturn a decision it had made just a few hours earlier to close all restaurants in an effort to respond to a spike in the spread of the coronavirus.

The original decision was infuriating to these restauranteurs. Their refrigerators were filled with expensive foodstuffs, purchased in preparation for the weekend. With the realization that the food would now go to waste was one step too far for a sector that suffered one of the worst blows since the coronavirus pandemic started in March. For months, these restaurants, bars and cafes were forced to shutter their doors without any adequate compensation for their losses. Many of these businesses shut down entirely. Others are now teetering on bankruptcy. Even the country’s finest chefs are trapped in the uncertainty of this miserable new reality.

This time, however, their response was different. Posts and video clips started popping up on social networks, announcing that restaurants have no plans to follow the government’s overbearing instructions. Others started taking food out of their refrigerators and donating it to the needy. These protests were then documented on social media — the restauranteurs were desperate.

While all of this was going on, restauranteurs sent angry messages to the government, some of them through ministers, who actually requested an extension, in order to avoid the immediate financial damages they would suffer from another weekend with no business. After all, they had already spent tens of thousands of shekels from their own pockets to fill their pantries and refrigerators.