[as if in dreams] A newsletter from Joseph Zitt - 07 November 2023
Hi. I'm Joseph Zitt. I moved from the US to Israel in 2017. This is my newsletter about more-or-less daily life in my city in the shadow of war. You can select these links to subscribe or unsubscribe. There are more links at the bottom. Here we go...
All flags, I'm told, are at half-mast today. I can't tell. While small flags are everywhere, on houses, shops, cars, and paper towels, I haven't passed any flagpoles on my way to work.
An official Moment of Silence is announced for 11 AM. No one in the office seems to notice. There are usually sirens when these happen, but right now they would cause everyone to run for the shelters.
Today is officially the thirtieth day after the first of the funerals for victims of the massacre. The period of thirty days is significant in Jewish mourning. Much like the better-known first seven days ("sitting shiva" where shiva literally means "seven"), the period of thirty days is known as shloshim (literally "thirty"). Men who are mourning don't shave during those first thirty days. People don't get haircuts. After the thirty days, in some places (like my office), it's traditional to set out plates of varied snacks (fruit, nuts, cakes) with the texts of the relevant blessings, so each blessing said can help the souls of the departed.
Word gets out late about today's memorial events. The first news article that I see hits the Web after 9 AM, when some of the events around the country have already started. Another local site publishes a listing of events in the area at about 11:30.
This evening, events expand to a national scale. Our Philharmonic plays a memorial concert in the arts center in the next city over. An hour later, in our capital, families of the bereaved hold a memorial and a protest rally outside our Parliament building, demanding a new government. They set up a tent city, to remain there for as long as it takes. (I would say that they plan to occupy the square, but "occupation" has other overtones here.)
A WhatsApp post announces that the event promoted yesterday has been cancelled. It would conflict with the ones that the city announced afterward. The post is followed by a similarly designed listing of official events, on the streets, in schools, and in senior centers. Most of those are at 5 PM. I'm still at work. The House of a Hundred Grandmothers holds a memorial in its event hall.
Meanwhile, groups around the country are trying to adjust to how things are now. The populations of some kibbutzim have been transferred en masse to hotels or to areas set aside in other towns. Many of them have gotten their communities up and running quite quickly. Already having a communal structure, they are able to assess their needs and look for relevant resources.
A kibbutz that has moved to one hotel overlooking our town's beach has recreated their school system. They are advertising for teachers and other needed staff.
Another quiet town in the desert has turned a boarding school and other facilities into homes for several different communities. One group is preparing their community's food in the school's dining hall. Another group, requiring facilities that are more strictly kosher, has been set up with its own cooking space elsewhere. And another donation center and other assistance is aiding people from a Bedouin village nearby, hit by rockets, that the government doesn't officially recognize.
Other projects are helping to train mental health workers in dealing with the amount of trauma within the country. Everyone is affected in some way. They are being trained to recognize and treat the different levels and types of trauma that they might encounter.
The health plans here report a 20-30% increase in demand for over-the-counter psychiatric mediations and sedatives over the past month. One reports a 90% increase in non-prescription sedatives and sleeping aids. Its members also purchased over 200% more of a nutritional aid (I don't know which one) that supposedly has a calming effect. And, as I did, people are stocking up on multiple months of prescribed medications when they can.
I hear in a WhatsApp post about a tutor, working this morning with children nearby, asking them to name a type of vehicle. A child says "rocket," specifically using the Hebrew word roketa for the explosive rockets used in attacks, not the word khalalit used for space travel. The same child keeps saying of their father, who is in the Reserves, "if he comes home," not "when."
In a pleasant surprise, the family of a relative who is away at the northern front has received a gift bag from their city. A cheerful sticker in the national colors says "The city salutes you." The bag contains a tomato plant, two bars of chocolate labeled "this city is with you in every situation" and "we'll get through this together," and a cake baked by the students of the school at which the father works when he's not at war.
I eat supper at the chicken joint on the city square. We hear booms. People look around. "Was that a boom?" "Yep, a boom." "OK." We continue eating.
At home, precisely at 9 PM, I hear sirens, first from my phone and then from outside. I turn on the lights on the steps down to my door, in case my landlord needs to come in from outside. With my phone, I go into the tiny area off of my kitchen.
The landlord and landlady come through the inside door into my kitchen and around to where I am. The landlady turns on a light switch that I hadn't seen. The light reveals a doorknob that, in the five years I've been living here, I also hadn't noticed.
She opens the door, revealing a larger space. It's obviously well-built. The door and walls are heavy. There are two chairs in there and other objects, including what looks like a bed frame on its side.
We all go in. The landlord apologizes for the other junk in the room and promises to clear it out. He offers me a seat, but I keep standing. The two of them sit down. We talk. My Hebrew is now good enough that we can communicate without too much hesitation.
We leave after a few minutes -- not the full ten, but I figure that I should exit when they do. It's their house, and I'm pretty well protected, several minutes after the sirens, sitting far from the door and windows of my basement apartment.
I put on YouTube, hoping to find a replay of tonight's event with the Philharmonic. It isn't there yet.
I watch a bit of the Prime Minister's speech from earlier in the evening. A few minutes later, I can't remember anything that he said. I'll check the newspapers in the morning, before my Hebrew lesson. If he said anything important, it will be there.
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Here’s an archive of past newsletters.
You can find me via email, Bluesky, Mastodon, Facebook, and, just out of inertia, X/Twitter. There's more about me and my books, music, and films at josephzitt.com.
The newsletter’s official mailing address is 304 S. Jones Blvd #3567, Las Vegas NV 89107. (I’m in Israel, but if physical mail comes to me there, it’ll get scanned and emailed. I don’t expect that to happen much. If you want to send me physical mail, ask me for a real address.)
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L'hitraot.