[as if in dreams] A newsletter from Joseph Zitt - 27 October 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...
The mayor is angry. I read his statement as I eat my breakfast.
Evacuees from the war zones are coming to towns in the rest of the country. For each person, the national government is sending five shekels to the city in which they arrive. Assuming that the exchange rate doesn't continue to plummet, that's about a dollar and a quarter. "Shame and disgrace!", the mayor writes. "Do you know how much diapers cost, how much food costs per resident each day? I don't need you to pay me with a bag of pretzels."
I read it in Google Translate, but double-check the original. The word for pretzels is ambiguous. It's "beigele," which is also used for a kind of donut-shaped roll, whether or not it's made from pretzel dough. I often find people selling them on the street, at train station exits. The calls of "Beigele! Beigele!" are part of the soundscape. (I don't know offhand if they use the same word for what Americans call "bagels," since I rarely see those here.)
In this case, it's clear what he means: the thin tiny ones, shaped like what Americans call pretzels, that come in snack-sized five-shekel bags. And he's right: it's not enough money for much of anything.
On its Facebook page, the city has posted a photo of the Sabbath table with empty chairs for each hostage. It's now in the plaza opposite our City Hall. There are 229 chairs now, up from last week's 203, even accounting for the four people who were released in the past week. The papers say that a matching display has been set up in New York's Times Square.
A march and press conference in the city to the south last night berated the national government for its apparent inaction in getting the hostages back. Posters with their names and faces are everywhere.
At about noon, I go downtown to shop (since no buses at all, from my house or downtown, are running to the mall). I see a large handmade display outside the Great Synagogue. It looks like it has been made from a bedsheet, apparently painted by kids. Text on it says, "Don't (something) the children." I don't know the middle word. I mean to take a picture of it when I pass it again, but when I come back, it's gone. I can't remember the word that I didn't know.
I listen to news podcasts on the way and read more articles over lunch. Many question whether and when our troops will cross the border for the promised ground incursion. The government has been saying little about their plans, or, for that matter, about anything. One broadcaster notes that our Prime Minister hasn't given an interview to Hebrew-language media since April. And voices from throughout the country call out the people at the top for the intelligence failures that have led to so many deaths in the past few weeks.
It appears that we are, effectively, operating without a national government. Everyone in charge is keeping a low profile. Few are making any visible decisions. The choices that they are making don't look good. Those who show up are pointing fingers at each other. Polls this week show trust in the government at about twenty percent. What little is getting done is because of what some deride as the "deep state": the large, quiet layer of workers who actually keep things rolling, outside of view.
What's keeping other things happening is remarkably like a beautifully functioning anarchy. It's coming, to a great extent, from the groups who had been protesting, joined by people who want to help with the resources and skills that they have. The groups are widely distributed, self-organizing, and interoperable. No leaders are visible. It just works. Some of us wonder if we really need a top-level government at all.
The dining hall at the House of a Hundred Grandmothers is still closed in the evenings. I'm on my own for Shabbat dinner again.
I walk into several shops selling food to go for Shabbat. Most are set up with long arrays of warming food, like in a cafeteria. Workers fill containers with what the customers want. I don't know what much of it is. I'm tempted to just ask a worker to make me up a plate of what she thinks I'd like. I try to put that sentence together in Hebrew, but give up and leave.
I get my usual groceries at the Heart of the City. The line for the cashier is long. There are a lot of manager calls and cancelled items.
The line has to turn where I join it. I stand just to the right of the person before me. Someone else stands to the left. When the line moves, the other customer gestures for me to go before her.
The two young women just ahead of me are speaking English. As they talk, they reach up and tweak different parts of each other's ears. I gradually realize that they're considering getting them pierced for earrings.
When they are rung up, one attempts to pay with an official-looking card. One or both of them are soldiers, and apparently they can use it to cover groceries. The cashier has never seen it before. The manager has heard of it, but doesn't know how to get the computer to recognize it. I pull out my wallet and am about to say that I'll pay for their purchase (my part to help some soldiers out) when one of them digs out another card.
I stop in to my favorite chicken joint. They are apparently very pleased to see me. It looks like business has been slow. One worker shakes my hand. "Salad with chicken?" he asks.
"Not this time," I reply.
"Really? This is the first time!" Yes, I can be tiresomely consistent.
"Can I have a half-chicken to go for the evening?"
"Of course! Rice and vegetables?"
The boss cuts in. "Don't worry. I'll put everything together." He knows what I like.
The worker takes a whole chicken out of the rotisserie and puts it on the grill. He cuts it apart with poultry shears, then picks up a can with a metal spigot and gradually moves a butane flame over the chicken's surface.
He wraps the chicken in foil and puts it in a bag. The boss hands him a to-go container, like one might get from an American Chinese restaurant. That goes in the bag, too.
I pay (it's cheaper than I expected) and wish them a peaceful Sabbath. They respond with a more formal wish, "that we all will have a peaceful Sabbath."
On the way home, I hear four or five large booms. One may have been an echo. They don't trigger sirens where I am.
When I get home, I check the liveblog on my screen. An apartment building has been hit in the city south of ours. Our company's WhatsApp group gets a flurry of messages. None of our team were where it hit, though one of them lives nearby. Four other people were injured and are in "light to moderate" condition. In another barrage, a rocket hits a walkway in a park in that city.
I have a proper Sabbath dinner with wine, challah, and what I got from the chicken joint. The chicken itself is wonderful. The rice is good. The vegetables, however, are like the peas and carrots that one can get frozen at the supermarket. Oh, well.
I finish listening to a podcast and watch some TV before sitting down to finish writing this. More news online tells of rockets in cities near us, revelations about how the enemy is organizing (though the information comes from our own propaganda units), and reports of ground battles across the border.
I finish the first draft, then step over to the kitchen. I wash the supper dishes and set things up to make shakshuka tomorrow. I'll try to hold off on learning anything new until I wake up in the morning.
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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.