Meet Sarah Nadav. She’s a successful behavioral economist probably best known for her work with the World Economic Forum.
Not that this means someone is necessarily sane, but it at least demonstrates the ability to understand data and be put-together enough to navigate higher education and the working world.
In fact, Nadav is the co-author of a paper published in May by the World Economic Forum — a Geneva, Switzerland-based international foundation — that advocated essentially a government takeover of their countries’ economies, with a government-provided universal basic income for all citizens and a “Big Freeze” on financial activity that involves government suspension of mortgage payments, rent payments, credit card payments, utilities, etc., until the coronavirus crisis is resolved.
In other words, she clearly has no problem with drastic solutions.
She’s also somewhat of a power player in Israeli politics. Formerly a member of American Friends of Likud, according to the Jerusalem Post, she’s credited with introducing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with American conservative megadonor and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. She transitioned into the founding executive director of Kol Hanashim, a new women’s political party.
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More importantly for our purposes, she’s been critical of Israel’s reopening for COVID-19, with the New York Jewish Week reporting she was “deeply troubled by the speed with which Israel has gone from lockdown to almost fully open, sometimes backtracking along the way.”
“The way Israel is reopening is haphazard at best,” she told the paper back in June.
“If you open a store, the chances that a customer will get exposed to the virus are low but the chance that the store worker will get exposed is high,” she said. “Public transportation brings many people together into an enclosed space with circulating air from an air conditioner, which is also problematic. Then add to this that workers need to take public transportation to get to their jobs and it’s a recipe for disaster.”
She’s also a mother of two teenage sons who says she’s “had surgery and … immunocompromised.” The native New Yorker and current Tel Aviv resident says Israel’s COVID-19 “infection rates started spiking and we’re in an intense second wave.”
Her kids have potentially been exposed to the coronavirus — so, being a self-sacrificing mother who understood the risks, she came up with a solution. And naturally, it was drastic:
My kids got potentially exposed to COVID-19, there is no proper room to quarantine in the house so I got creative and they are camping in the yard. Is this brilliant or ridiculous? @DrEricDing pic.twitter.com/o1klH7Q2yI
— Sarah Nadav (@sarahnadav) July 26, 2020
Firstly, the individual Nadav tagged on the Twitter post is Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, a Harvard epidemiologist who’s a top expert on COVID-19. He hadn’t responded to this thread as of Tuesday morning, which seems to have been a wise idea. Second, yeah, so her kids are now living in a tent because they were “potentially exposed to COVID-19.”
What does being “potentially exposed” entail, though? Former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson put together a brief summary:
Meet @sarahnadav. Sarah makes her kids – 13 and 15 – sleep, eat, and urinate outside.
Their crime? They saw their aunt, a swim teacher who had a student (age 5) with #SARSCoV2. Now Sarah says they were “potentially exposed” – and a risk to her.
I wish I were making this up. pic.twitter.com/FmRhgYznON
— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) July 27, 2020
Apparently, Nadav’s sons were exposed via their aunt, who was exposed via a 5-year-old swim student.
Is anyone sick here? That doesn’t seem to be the case, at least as of Tuesday morning — not the aunt, not Nadav’s kids, not Nadav.
5 year old got COVID-19 at daycare, took a swimming lesson at an indoor pool. Everyone is quarantined and waiting for results. Kids get and spread COVID-19!!!!!!!
— Sarah Nadav (@sarahnadav) July 26, 2020
Now, just to be clear, things aren’t as bad as Berenson made them seem. Sure, they urinate outside, but if they need to get rid of solid waste products, Nadav is magnanimous enough to let them use an actual toilet:
I let the kids come in with masks on to use the bathroom. Also, keeping all the windows open. They pee outside so it’s not that often 🙂
— Sarah Nadav (@sarahnadav) July 27, 2020
See, they can poo inside! With masks and the windows open! Smiley face!
The important thing, Nadav wants us to know, is that this is all for the sake of her children:
You know, as a parent- you have an obligation to stay healthy FOR THEM. They might get a light case, but you might die. I made this decision because my kids need me to stay well for them.
— Sarah Nadav (@sarahnadav) July 27, 2020
The problem with people sharing things like this on social media is that you don’t know the specifics of Nadav’s situation. If I say that Nadav should take the tent and this article somehow reaches her partisans, watch how quickly I’m told the particulars of her condition make that impossible and how dare I?
That said, she’s invited us all in on her familial COVID crisis. After all, she could have just emailed Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding to get his opinion on this arrangement. If he ghosted her, as he seems to be doing here, that would have been a good enough answer for her.
Thus, having been given an invitation into her family’s coronavirus-related issues, let’s go over what we know:
- Sarah Nadav’s children had contact with a relative who had contact with someone who had COVID-19.
- No one’s tested positive.
- Nadav is immunocompromised because of surgery.
- The kids are out in the yard.
Solid parenting, that.
Here’s the thing: Nadav apparently isn’t alone with the backyard tent idea.
I set up the tent for my recent college grad son when he moved back home. It didn’t go over well, (besides he would have needed to come in to use the bathroom.) so we’re all wearing masks in the house, leaving doors and windows open, and social distancing for two weeks.
— Sandra Evans (@SEval459) July 27, 2020
So many judgemental paranoid folks in these comments never heard of kids camping outside in the yard during the summer.
This is like, a thing some people do for fun.
Sounds like a better option than “let’s all breathe the same recirculated air and see what happens!”
— PictureTherapy (@PictureTherapy) July 27, 2020
This is amazing – and very ישראלי – but I wonder, if your kids were exposed to somebody who was exposed to a covid patient are you sure they need to quarantine? I would’ve thought only your aunt. Anyway, wishing you all only health!
— Sol Adelsky, MD (@soladelsky) July 27, 2020
I would say brilliant, They get the warmth of being outside in summer, hopefully you are somewhere warm, and while playing outside they get vitamin D from the sun. And they get to have an adventure before heading back to school. I like it
— William J. Goebel (@Goebz) July 27, 2020
This is how crazy this virus is making some people. Don’t think someone should put their kids out in a tent in the yard because you’re afraid they might spread the virus? Think maybe quarantining them in a room with everyone wearing masks inside might evince better parenting? What are you — a bunch of snowflakes? Pearl-clutchers, the lot of you.
And when a commenter subtly suggested that maybe the adults should be the ones out in the tent, Nadav said that hey, kids love camping out! Even though hers aren’t quite thrilled with it all the time, but whatever!
lots of kids love to do campouts in the yard, and mine are teenagers. They understand why they need to be outside although they aren’t 100% happy about it
— Sarah Nadav (@sarahnadav) July 27, 2020
Nadav, it’s worth noting, replied to a lot of the tweets in the thread — questions about how secure their property was, how she was checking on her kids and seeing if they’d come down with COVID-19, what kind of amenities they had, that sort of thing.
However, there was one particular kind of comment she serially a) didn’t notice or b) didn’t want to answer:
Ok but quick question… why not give them their beds, a bathroom and running water and YOU sleep in the yard?
— Shana Thompson (@STx3Content) July 27, 2020
I have one question, why don’t you sleep in the tent and let the kids have the house? That was my solution in the same position.
— Johanna Wester (@JohannaWester4) July 27, 2020
If you really believe this then why aren’t you living in the yard?
— Dan Dickey (@dldickey) July 27, 2020
Perhaps this was because, despite the fact she put this out there for public consumption, Nadav wasn’t particularly interested in input that wasn’t lauding her for splendid parenting in the face of pandemic-related challenges.
You should NOT judge others. This is a difficult time for everyone. They went to their Aunt’s house, their aunt was exposed to a 5 year old that tested positive. We are exceptionally careful, and even the most careful people can get it
— Sarah Nadav (@sarahnadav) July 27, 2020
Spare me. This is a slightly less tawdry version of the kind of person that airs sundry, extremely private details of their life online and says, when those details aren’t met with universal approval, declares that “only God can judge.”
Would you have done what this mother did?
Nadav threw her situation out into the Twitter ether and asked whether it was “brilliant or ridiculous.” When some people went with the latter — which isn’t an unreasonable conclusion — she acted as if intruders had broken into her backyard, taken these pictures without her permission and Twitter-shamed her with half-truths.
I ordinarily wouldn’t even have remarked on this thread, inasmuch as there are so many particulars of Nadav’s situation she isn’t keen on sharing. I’ll say this much, though:
If you ask the world for judgment and then say people who don’t affirm your parenting choices “should NOT judge others,” I’m pretty sure you know you’re doing something wrong.
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