January 6, 2024

Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2024-01-05

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. You can also read this email online here. Here we go...

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Breakfast and Beyond

I'm surprised when the cashier at my usual café asks my name. It's been a while since that's happened. I recognize her, but then realize that she hasn't worked here in a long time.

The barista at the espresso machine calls out, "That's Yosef. Hi, Yosef!"

The cashier says, "Oh! Right. Hi, Yosef!" She rings me up. I sit down at a free table. I put my empty shopping bag on it so that it won't be taken when I go up to the counter to get my breakfast.

It takes longer than usual. I eventually go up there. My tray is there. I hadn't heard them call my name. With their fuzzy overhead sound system, it's easy for all the names to sound either alike or unfamiliar.

It's my usual breakfast: salad, tuna, halloumi, another white cheese, bread, eggs, and coffee. By the time I get them, the eggs have gone cold. Oh, well.

I'm not running as late as I usually do on Friday mornings. The supermarket at the Heart of the City will still be open for another hour or so. The produce is somewhat picked through, but I still find what I need. They even have the individual cups of the 5% white cheese that I like.

It all just about fits in my shopping bag. When I'm ready to check out, the cashier asks me if I need another bag. I say that I don't. She says that I do. My bag is too full. I insist that it all fits.

Once I unload it all onto the counter, check out, then load it back in, I realize that she's right. It doesn't quite fit. But she has moved on to the next customer.

I decide to take the bus home. When I get to the stop, my bus is just leaving. The next one isn't for half an hour. I stop into the chain-store café at the stop. I get a large coffee and a small pastry.

I sit and open the news on my phone. I see the first headline: Across the border, an hour or two's drive from here, if one could drive there, according to a UN report¹, most of the population, uprooted and hopeless, may soon starve.²

Here in Town

One of our city's beaches has blocked swimming. Unlike previous times, when pollution made the water unsafe, this is a permanent, positive change. A stretch of about a hundred meters has been set aside for sailing, surfing, and kayaking. That's good to hear. We have kayakers in the family. ³

Families from a kibbutz to the south that has been evacuated are moving into apartments in the new dormitory buildings on the college campus, a few blocks from me.⁴ The staff and students are eagerly welcoming them.⁵

The Music Center here and the conservatory just south of our city are also welcoming evacuees.⁶

A couple of sports events on Saturday will bring attention to victims of the war. One slain soldier, the son of the former Chief of Staff, was an avid member of a local gym, the "Gorilla Club." They'll have a special training session in his memory.⁷

A bike ride will be coming through town to honor one of the hostages, a triathelete who was an observer at an overrun army base.⁸ Her father and grandfather are also triatheletes. The ride will start at Hostage Square in the big city south of us and proceed through several towns to a rally in a park in the next town north.

The Dimmer Twins

A series of crises and kerfuffles in the news this week are due to the machinations of two of our top ministers. Our Finance Minister and Minister of National Security, the Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber of government, keep saying things that stir things up, apparently just for fun and to garner the votes of the far-right extremists. They make MAGA Republicans seem like Nobel Prize winners.

Their latest bit this week came in reports that the two of them were talking about "voluntarily migrating" the population of Gaza to Congo.⁹ Yes, that's right, in Africa, in a country already wracked by, as Associated Press put it, "an alarming humanitarian crisis and massive sexual violence."¹⁰ (At least i think that's the place. Africa has two different countries, the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and media refers to each randomly just as "Congo.")

I don't think that will fly, to put it mildly. People have not been demonstrating for the right to reclaim land between the Congo River and the Sea.

Everyone else, from our official spokespeople to the US, UN, and Congo itself, has been running in circles saying that the two trolls don't represent the government, that we have no plans in that direction, that it's a non-starter, that the talks never happened, and, well, just about every other diplomatic way of saying "WTF?!"

Meanwhile, last night the Security Cabinet, which also includes these two dimbulbs (the anti-particles to the Urim and Thummim?¹¹) held a meeting in which the Army announced that they were starting official investigations into what went wrong with our security before the war.

A while into the meeting, the twins, along with their nitwit cronies, turned the meeting into what news sites called a "fracas"¹², with ministers and cabinet members shouting at each other. The prime minister, making a rare sensible decision, shut the meeting down.

And meanwhile... I could just go on. I really wish I could summon the spirit of Steven Hart.¹³ He was a master of the flavor of vitriol this needs.

Hedgehog on My Trail

A large crowd has gathered outside the dining hall at the House of a Hundred Grandmothers by the time I get there. They sound good at Kiddush.

On the way home, I'm startled by a dog barking a few inches from my ear. It has somehow gotten up onto a wide brick wall around one of the houses. I jump, but then keep going. I have a feeling that it isn't in the mood for conversation.

In the park, three teenage girls sit on the swings, chattering and staring at their phones.

The usual hedgehog is in my path in the yard, hovering in the light outside my landlord's front door. It looks like it has discovered some food that a cat has left behind. It's trying to figure out what to do with it.

I come home, make some lemon tea, and sit down at the computer. I have a lot of writing to do.

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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 at that Las Vegas address, 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.