Israeli falafel shop owner who cried during interview about economic hardship suffers heart attack

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Israeli falafel show owner who sparked pity and derision after crying during a television interview about the economic toll of the coronavirus had emergency treatment for a heart attack.

Yuval Carmi’s doctor told Israel’s Channel 13 earlier this week that the heart attack was related to the stress he has been experiencing in the past two months over his economic difficulties due to the country’s shutdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

“It can totally be said that he took it to heart. No doubt,” Dr. Kobe George, director of the cardiology department at Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot, told the television news channel.

Carmi went to the hospital on Sunday after days of chest pains and weakness. He said he was afraid to go to a hospital due to the pandemic. He was taken for an immediate catheterization.

Carmi was interviewed by Channel 13 last month, when his shop was shut down after he had reopened it, believing the relaxing of some regulations to control the coronavirus crisis allowed him to do so. He broke down in tears on camera, leading the reporter interviewing him to cry also.

“Look at my wallet, it’s empty,” he said during the interview. “I don’t have a shekel in my pocket.

“I’m embarrassed to face my children, to tell them I have nothing I can buy for you. I have nothing to give them. I have nothing to give them to eat. I don’t know what to do.”

He said that he has gained an uncomfortable notoriety since the interview, including accusations on social media that he used the interview to increase his business or get extra assistance, or that he was actually rich.

Carmi said that when he arrived at the emergency room, “Someone came up to me, his wife recognized me and said ‘Hello.’ Her husband came up and asked her, ‘Do you know him?’ She said, ‘Yes, it’s the crybaby from the television.’ It hurt me. My heart exploded.”