December 1, 2023

Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2023-11-30

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...

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The electronic billboard in the city square flips through pictures of hostages.

In other times, long ago, before October, it showed pleas to shop locally, reminders of COVID safety, and announcements of city events. Now, along with the same black, white, and red graphics that we see everywhere, faces shift in and out of view at a slow, steady pace. The image occasionally dissolves to blue and white, with an animated flag and the two Hebrew words for "Together we will be victorious!"¹ But mostly it shows the faces and that ubiquitous slogan: "Bring them home now."²

As I wait for the traffic light to change, I only see photos of men. Many, perhaps most, of the woman and children have been returned.

The photos are varied, gathered from what friends and relatives happened to have of them. Some of the men have grandchildren around them. Some of the pictures of younger men are downright goofy. They didn't know that their spontaneous selfies would come to represent them in a solemn campaign. I do a double-take whenever I see one of the men. He looks almost exactly like Bob Denver as Gilligan.

The local news site tells us of one woman who is returning today. Her grandfather is apparently a well-known figure in my city.³ I realize from the article that I had gotten confused about her and another returned hostage. Her name is Mia. The other one is Maya. She has family here. The other one is from here. Both are the same age. Both were kidnapped at the all-night rave. She was shot in the arm. The other was shot in the leg.

Each person has an individual, unique, often heartbreaking story. But in the aggregate, they can start to blur.

Some of the children who have returned are speaking to relatives and caregivers about what they have experienced. Some won't. Many will only whisper, since they had been told for months not to make noise.⁴ Some were beaten. Some were forced to watch the gruesome videos of the October 7th attacks.⁵ Some were kept in darkness. One girl thought she had been held captive for a year.⁶

Some had no idea what had happened to their families. Some were separated from them. Some saw them killed. Some found out that their relatives had died when they overheard a radio.

The medical teams do what they can for the children. Sometimes they bend the rules. One hospital allows the returned children's dog to visit them.⁷ One gets to see his eight best friends. Another gets to meet players from his favorite soccer team.

Most, when they were hostages, had no medical care at all. The Red Cross wasn't allowed to see them. The aunt of the woman who was shot in the arm said that a veterinarian operated on her. The woman figured out physical therapy for herself.⁸

The staff of a children's medical center learned that some of the returned hostages would be coming to them. The director developed methods and protocols for handling them. She said that they researched the professional literature for information on treating children returned from captivity. They found nothing. They realize that they will "be the ones to write for others the professional literature that is missing."⁹

Other doctors tell of what their profession knows now about raising children who have experienced trauma. They say that it affects even the tiniest ones. We tend to think that they would not remember what happened, and that it wouldn't affect them, but it does. Even if they don't have language yet, the trauma is "registered in the body."¹⁰

The Ministry of Education have established some guidelines for re-integrating the children into their schools. Teachers will have special training. Specialists will be assigned to each location. They have to consider a lot of variables.¹¹

As it is, the Ministry says that 29 percent of current educational psychologist positions are vacant. At a center in my city, there are only two psychologists for ninety children. Pay for these psychologists, like many in the educational system, is extremely low. And for the former hostages, as well as for the children evacuated from the towns and kibbutzim along our border, and for all the other children in the country, each of whom has been going through their own traumatic experience, they need the best, with knowledge, empathy, and resilience.¹²

I see that more hostages have just been released. No children, but several young women, and a Bedouin brother and sister.

As I edit this, adding the line that talks about the way the sign looked "long ago, before October," I remember that, for a while, people had been half-jokingly been talking about "the before times," since everything changed with COVID and the lockdowns. Now, the era before the war feels like "the before times."

After the massacre, it feels like everything has changed. I still walk through the same mundane city and work at the same job. Look closely, though, and you see that the store ads speak of "victory together." Pictures of hostages are everywhere. Far more people are wearing uniforms and carrying guns.

People whose days had repeated the same dull structure now keep vigil, tracking the news, interrupted by sirens, dashing to protected basements, staircases, and hallways. Some have nightmares of being abducted. We say that this didn't happen before. We don't have to say before what.

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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.