כמיהה לעבר, תקווה לעתיד

The study examines the isolation experience in Israel during the “COVID-19 Crisis”, focusing on the stories of the first people who were isolated in Israel. The study is based on an ethnographic fieldwork that began in the early days of the crisis. I conducted in-depth interviews with 53 isolated individuals, observations, and conversations from a safe distance and wrote a field diary. In this paper, I will focus on narratives that contain elements of nostalgia and longing (theme). I will argue that isolated individuals used nostalgia and longing as a source of hope and strength of their personal and social resilience during isolation. The isolation space served them as a liminal space, where indulgence in the past inspired a hope for a better future at a time of crisis and uncertainty (claim). The seeds of hope are now evident throughout the country in the form of rapidly growing protests.