December 26, 2023

Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2023-12-26

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. If you're reading this as email, you can also read it online here. Here we go...

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Birthday

Several slices of fruit skid across the floor of the office kitchen. A coworker has gotten overambitious in carrying plates of them into the conference room.

I immediately think of the adage, "An apple doesn't fall far from its tree." These may have. On the other hand, they may not have traveled as far as in previous years. By law, stores are now distinguishing local produce from what's imported. We're buying local as much as possible. And the local red apples, which have often been bland and mushy, are actually quite good this year.

It's the boss's birthday. At noon, we all gather in the conference room. They have laid out plates of fruit (apples, persimmons, strawberries, and bananas), cookies, a small cake, and two bottles of wine (a Merlot and a Muscato, each kosher and domestic, of course).

The other boss takes a picture of all of us, angling his phone so that his face is also in the frame. There's the usual eating, drinking, toasting, and singing.

People talk about the requests that they're getting from soldiers. Several have children on the front. One complains, "He keeps telling me to send food. Send food. Every day, food. Every day, food. Haven't I sent them enough food already?"

Another says that they've told that the troops need sweaters, but only green or black.

We hear about how we and our competitors are doing at the end of the year. I don't understand much of that. Then the doorbell rings. Someone is here for another meeting. We disperse.

Cinematheque

This city is doing more at the new Cinematheque than just showing movies.

Tonight, in the smaller theater, they're showing a 25-minute short, The Boy,¹ filmed on a kibbutz near the border. On October 7th, the director was murdered, and the kibbutz was destroyed. After the showing, the director's partner and editor will hold a Q&A. The film has been showing repeatedly at both of the cinemas near my house. Seeing the announcement this afternoon, I try to get a ticket. It's sold out.

Tomorrow night, in the larger theater, they're having a symposium on "LGBT People in Battle."² It's being held in memory of a gay soldier from our town, who died in that same massacre at another kibbutz. He was planning to marry his fiancé later that month. The popular singer who was going to perform at the marriage sang their wedding song at the funeral.³

Among other things, the speakers and panelists will discuss the drive for equal treatment of LGBT soldiers in the army and in the society. Both the speaker of our parliament, who is also openly gay, and the leader of the Opposition have spoken out in favor of equality for fallen soldiers.⁴

I had expected a café to be set up next to the Cinematheque when it first opened, but the space is still empty. They're still accepting tenders for who will run it.⁵ They say it's going to be a dairy eatery, with prices determined by the municipality. The city's CEO expects hundreds of people to come to the Cinematheque each day for "recreation, leisure, social gatherings, activities, culture, etc." Once it opens, I expect to be there a lot.

Houses of Worship

In the war today, a rocket hit a synagogue near the southern border.⁶

Near the northern border, a missile hit a Greek Orthodox church, wounding a man in his 80s who was inside.⁷ Nine of our troops were injured when further missiles hit the church as they were trying to rescue the man.

Further missiles were filed at the north from a spot next to a mosque.

Our Army shelled the launch sites. The newspapers haven't said what we hit.

The Supernova Rave

More of the backstory of the war is emerging. Once again, people in authority had apparently been warned of events before they happened.

Recent reports say that the Army's operations officer for the area in which the Supernova Rave was held was concerned about it.⁸ They weren't expecting an invasion, but they were within range of rockets and mortar fire from across the border.

The local regional council was also concerned that it would be a public nuisance. But I think that's been true of every similar festival since Woodstock.

About a thousand survivors of the rave have been coming to a complex north of here to work on healing.⁹ A wide variety of services and organizations have come together there, using a lot of different modalities to help those who gather there.

NBC reported last week that a woman who had been filmed being kidnapped from the rave may not have been taken by the terrorists themselves.¹⁰ It looks like she was abducted by an opportunistic mob who came in after the invading army were finished and continued the attack.

A clip released later showed her alive, apparently across the border. She's believed to still be a hostage. Many of her friends are particularly concerned about her, especially given the widening evidence of sexual violence against the victims of the attack.

Careful with that camera

Police raided a film shoot at the south end of the country last week.¹¹ A well-known broadcast comedy show was filming a sketch about Houthi terrorists planning an attack. Their costumes and sets were too good.

One thing that was banged into my head in film school: if you're going to do anything that might look like a crime, tell the cops before you do it. They may still take the opportunity to be jerks, but it lessens the odds of, say, a SWAT team unexpectedly showing up on set. Especially when there's a war going on.

Not sachlav

After work, I stop at the usual café. It's chilly. The wind is blowing. At least it doesn't feel like it's blowing in dust or rain.

A worker is logging out of the self-ordering kiosk. He sees me. "Yosef! It's a perfect day for a sachlav!"

I nod. "It is. But I'm getting something else."

"Something else? What else could someone drink on a day like this?"

"Hot cider?"

"Ooh." He pauses as he winds up the kiosk's cord. "Yes. Hot cider. It's also a good day for hot cider. Yes."

I step over to the counter. A young woman behind the register is chatting with another young woman standing next to me. She sees me, holds up one hand in the local gesture for "wait a moment" (a gesture that would be offensive and possibly obscene in some other places), and finishes her chat.

The other woman steps aside. The cashier turns to me. "Sorry, Yosef. This is my mother."

I look back and forth at them. If I were told that they were mother and daughter and to guess which was which, I might get it wrong. Maybe I'm getting old. If I had a daughter, she might have been close to the mother's age now.

I order the cider and a Bowl Balkani. They have the quinoa this time. I pay, sit down, and flip through news as I wait for my name to be called.

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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.