“We Made It Past Pharaoh” Is the Israeli Version of “Keep Calm and Carry On”

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Any viewer of Israeli television with a better knowledge of Hebrew than of Israeli popular culture might have been puzzled by an expression encountered frequently these past weeks. Not a few Israelis, interviewed about the coronavirus by roving reporters in the street, have answered by saying, “Avarnu et par’o, na’avor gam et zeh”—which translates as, “We made it past Pharaoh, we’ll make it past this.” Sometimes this has been shortened to just “We made it past Pharaoh.”

Was this because of the Passover season? It would be nice to think that Israelis live the story of the exodus so intensely at Passover time that even COVID-19 has made them think of it. The truth, however, lies mostly elsewhere.