December 16, 2023

Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2023-12-15

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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I get to the supermarket just as they're locking up. I stayed up too late last night, woke up too early this morning, and spent too much time at the computer before heading out.

(Much of the time at the computer is spent dealing with the typos and grammatical errors in yesterday's post, caused by staying up too late. I fix them on Facebook and in the source files. I don't think I can do anything about the newsletter once it has gone out.)

Fortunately, some smaller shops stay open later than the supermarket. Maybe it doesn't take them as long to clean up and shut down before Shabbat. According to the localized Jewish calendar that I track,¹ tonight is the earliest that Shabbat starts this year, at 4:19 PM.

I only need a few things. I get bread at a bakery in the Heart of the City. This isn't the donut place or the more commercial bakery where my boss gets cookies, but a third bakery in the same complex. My family turned me on to it as the best place in town to get challah.

I get a loaf of more normal bread and a package of small pitas (both a little more expensive than at the supermarket), but not challah. I'll have some challah with Shabbat dinner at the House of Hundred Grandmothers, and I don't need a whole loaf. If I have one, I nibble at it over the course of the week, when I could be eating healthier things.

I get produce (peppers, onions, and clementines) at a small grocery across the street, just past the Great Synagogue and my favorite ice cream shop. It's significantly cheaper there than at the supermarket. The peppers and clementines are from the sidewalk display in front of the store. The produce there doesn't tend to look as good as the best of what's inside, but the prices are lower. I earn enough that I don't tend to shop for groceries based on price or even notice prices much, but it's nice to save a little.

My favorite hummus joint is still open when I go past, so I stop there for lunch. I haven't eaten there in a while, though I did dive into their bomb shelter when we had sirens several weeks ago.

A few things have changed. On the back wall, above everything else, they had a widescreen TV. I don't think I ever saw it turned on. Now the space is covered by a graphic, combining images of the food and the workers with newspaper articles about the store. Even if I could understand newspaper Hebrew, which tends to appear compressed and cryptic to those of us who haven't grown up reading it, the print is too small to make out. But a big headline on the largest article proclaims "First in Hummus!"

As I wait in the line, which is always long, I hear two little girls counting soldiers. "There's one over there, near the big dog. That's three."

"And there's one, at the grocery, with an ice cream cone."

"She isn't a soldier! She's dressed normally."

"Yes, she is. Look behind her back. She has the big gun!"

"OK, hse's a soldier. That's four! Are there any over there, watching the people play backgammon?"

The news today isn't good. The big story is the accidental death of three of the hostages.² They had somehow escaped from their captors and were fleeing through a known terrorist stronghold across the border. Our own troops thought that the three were terrorists themselves. They shot and killed them.

The newspapers have brief profiles of them. One worked in a hatchery. One was studying computer engineering. And one was a heavy metal drummer.

A member of the War Cabinet has tweeted that "we will do everything to bring [the remaining hostages] back alive. Everything."³

The army also retrieved the bodies of three other hostages who had apparently died in captivity.⁴ One was the boyfriend of the former hostage who had family in our town, and who had just gotten a tattoo: "We will dance again."

Close to midnight, hundreds of protesters, including families of the hostages, are marching on Army headquarters demanding an immediate deal to release the hostages.⁵ A photo shows a protester having dipped a flag in red paint, making it look like it has been stained with blood.

The heavy rains this week were even worse across the border. That area is right at a bend in the coast (kind of like the bend in Ohio that causes lake effect snow), so rains coming in that way over the sea slam into it as they turn and proceed toward us. Both our media⁶ and theirs⁷ reported on the flooding. For the many people without basic necessities, living under sheets of plastic, it was especially harsh.

Ynet News has a long article on the graphic film of the October 7th massacre that is being shown to selected audiences.⁸ It includes an interview with the filmmakers. I have no desire to see the film, but, as a filmmaker, I find the behind the scenes information fascinating.

Ynet also reports on an attempted ambush that the terrorists had set up.⁹ Bluetooth speakers at the site played children's voices, speaking and singing in Hebrew. They had placed backpacks, book bags, and dolls around them. Some of the dolls were life-sized. Some were booby trapped. From what I can tell from the article and the video within it, our troops discovered the ruse without setting anything off.

At Shabbat dinner at the House, the residents sing heartily along with the Kiddush and the song before it. There's a good crowd.

Several people are new. A man with a walker comes in after Kiddush has started. He pauses near the rolling table where Kiddush is being said, uncertain whether to proceed to his table. He remains there and sings with everyone else, then goes the rest of the way when it is done.

I'm told that some of the evacuees who were staying there had briefly returned to their city. When rocket attacks resumed, they came back to the House.

Dinner is good, as always. The potatoes are especially delicious. I think I taste cumin. One relative tastes rosemary. I pull a sprig of rosemary from the pocket of my hoodie for comparison.

Yes, I happen to be carrying around a sprig of rosemary, from the bush that I was introduced to a week ago. I often have odd things in my pockets or bags. I remember that one time, at Occupy Cleveland, someone had spilled something on their clothes and wished that they had one of those stain remover sticks. I don't recall why I had one in my shoulder bag, but I did. People started to refer to it as the mythical Bag of Holding.¹⁰

When I come home, I decide to watch something on TV before resuming writing. I have a lot of stuff that I haven't watched, but I feel like seeing some of the Taylor Swift concert film again. I sit down in the big chair and put it on.

I doze off partway through, but that's OK. I wake up during "All Too Well," and stop at the end of the song. I get up, put the remaining groceries away, put the menorah and Hanukkah candles back on top of the cabinet next to the fridge for another year, and get back to work.

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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.