December 9, 2023

Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2023-12-08

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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"You are Yosef Zitt." The woman at the window at the Cinematheque states this, in English, rather than asking. I have never seen her before. I haven't said a word.

My face must be signaling, "Yes, but how did you know?"

"We spoke on the telephone this week. You were not able to get the ticket online for the Beyoncé movie. Something was wrong with your yearly pass. You had said that you would show up early to get the ticket in person. You will succeed in seeing Beyoncé tonight." She says that last sentence as if it's a religious imperative.

All this is true. She brings up the information on her screen. I can't see it. "It appears that the system thinks that I should refund the amount for the yearly pass, then charge it again."

She turns to the person at the other computer. They speak in rapid fire Hebrew. Knowing roughly what they're talking about, I can follow most of it.

She looks back up at me. "Since they want me to refund the amount then charge it again, I can just refund zero and charge zero. Yes, I think that will work." She tries. It doesn't. Her computer locks up completely.

A man who has been hanging out near the front door wanders over to us. They speak for a moment. He wanders over to a scanning station nearby. "Cancel?" he asks. I know that word, bitul. Cashiers holler it during just about half of the transactions that I overhear in supermarkets.

"Yes, cancel," she says. He scans something on the station with his phone. Or maybe he scans something on his phone at the station. From where I am, I can't tell.

They talk some more with the other person at the desk. She looks up at me. "I'm not sure what to do."

"I'm understanding most of what you're discussing, but what is the word zicui?"

"Zicui," she echoes. "It means 'refund.'"

"Ok," I say. My old bookstore cashier instincts kick in. "So could you just cancel and refund my yearly pass, then, in another transaction, sell me a new one?"

They confer. "Yes, it would be possible."

"OK, let's try it."

They do. It involves scanning my credit card several times. Receipts come in via email. We check each time to be sure that the system has done the right thing. It has.

"Congratulations," she says. "You now have the yearly pass. You will see Beyoncé." It still sounds like a command. "Which seat would you like?"

I had already looked at the map of the auditorium. "Row 6, seat 19."

"That is far away," she says.

"That's OK. I like sitting near the door, especially for very long movies." This one runs almost three hours.

"It is not near the door. I know that the chart is confusing. You really want row 6, seat 1."

I nod. So be it.

I purchase the ticket. The yearly pass works. Since this movie was scheduled outside the usual system (much like the Taylor Swift movie that I saw a few weeks ago), it isn't free, but I get the ticket for twenty shekels rather than sixty.

She hands me the printed ticket.

"Thanks," I say. "Hopefully it will work online for the next movie I come here for. If not, I'll just show up early."

"We will be here," she says.

"One more question: where are the sherutim?" I'm still speaking English, but I use the Hebrew words for "restrooms."

She points. "Through that door then --" She stops, laughs, and sings "To the left, to the left! To the left, to the left!"

On the way home after getting my Friday groceries, I stop by the same donut shop as yesterday. The line is long again.

I'm almost at the front when the worker announces, "After this person, we have no more."

I only want one. I tell him. The people behind me only want two.

"There are no more. This young man was going to get twenty, but we only have eighteen for him. There is nothing more in the vat. You can see that we have eighteen prepared. That is all. We must close for Shabbat. We open again on Sunday at 8 AM."

I walk away, disappointed. The people behind me and the worker holler at each other. Each says that the other needs patience.

I get a donut and a coffee at another bakery in the same complex. It's good, but not as fresh. I sit and read the news on my phone as I eat it.

The local news site says that streets are being closed and cleared around the cemetery where the General's son is to be buried.¹ Articles later in the day show some of the crowd, with the President and the Prime Minister standing side by side.²

As Marc Schulman says in his essential daily newsletter:

"Every day, the names of those who have fallen are shared on the news. The anchor takes a deep breath and first says “cleared for release.” Then, a photo, together with the name, rank, age and hometown of the deceased soldier appear. Each time I see those photos, I groan."³

An article on the main news site that I follow says, in its entirety, "Following the rocket sirens in Tel Aviv, residents report that shrapnel from a rocket fell on a parked vehicle in the coastal city. There are no reports of injuries."⁴ That's it. There's no sense of shock. At this point, it's a weather report.

I hear about a dozen clear booms as I walk to the House of a Hundred Grandmothers. I don't hear sirens. I walk briskly partway there. I slow down when I'm close enough that I figure that, if we do hear sirens, I can get to the shelter there in the required minute and a half without running. While I have mastered walking and chewing gum, I'm not good at running and breathing at the same time.

The House has decided to have Shabbat supper in the dining hall again this week. It's an important enough event for many of the residents that they try to do it, if at all possible.

Many of the residents are set in their ways. Some react badly to changes. Thus, the House always serves pretty much the same thing: turkey soup, salad, chicken, more vegetables, potatoes, and two kinds of dessert: cake and an excellent compote. Since some of my family don't or can't eat the compote, I always take home several of the individually packaged servings to enjoy during the week.

The Kiddush is somewhat more energetic than it was last week. Several people greet me as I walk back to our table.

My family asks me if I had seen more soldiers stationed around town this week. A friend had reported that on one afternoon, she had seen pairs of soldiers appearing to stand watch outside a market, a bank, and the Great Synagogue. I hadn't. There have been more soldiers than usual, some strolling around in pairs with the usual guns, but I hadn't seen anything more formal.

When I get home, I light tonight's Hanukkah candles. The matches that I have don't work well. They burn out within a couple of seconds, and don't light the shamash candle as they should. After about a dozen matches, I hold one up, with the box next to it, and strike it right next to the candle. This time, it lights, and lights the candle. Not quite a miracle, but a good result.

I sit back in my dark kitchen, drink some tea and eat a clementine, and watch the candles slowly burn.

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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.