Jerusalem: Last Thursday, as Tel Aviv nightclub Haoman 17 prepared to re-open after closing for a year during the pandemic, management had a niggling concern.
How would Israeli partygoers respond to the new entry requirement that they carry their country’s COVID passport – known locally as the Green Pass?
As doors were due to open at 11pm, office manager Emma Tokatly checked the CCTV cameras in the club that helped make the coastal city a world famous party destination. Outside she said she saw something the club had never witnessed in its 16 years of operation: a perfect, orderly queue.
“The crowd always just wants to get in but after this year, they were all very polite, they waited,” said Tokatly. “Clubbers don’t always have a lot of stuff on them, just their money in their pockets, but this time everyone came organised with their ID and with the application and everything.”