January 24, 2024

Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2024-01-23

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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Twenty One

Twenty-one of our soldiers have died in a single blast across the border. The news tells us that they had been rigging a building for demolition. Enemy RPGs hit their tank and set off the explosives while many of the soldiers were still inside the building.¹ The English language Al-Jazeera, as well as local media, has an effective news report on the event.²

One soldier was from our town.³ He'll be buried next door to my office tomorrow. A relative works with the spouse of another. In a country this small, everyone is likely to be connected to someone in a diverse group⁴ that large.

Ynet published the last letter from another of those soldiers to his family. He was reportedly an ordained rabbi and performed in a circus act with his twin brother:⁵

"If you are reading this, something must have happened. If I was taken hostage, do not free even one Palestinian terrorist in exchange for my release. Our resounding victory is paramount so just go on fighting until it is achieved.

"Perhaps I fell in battle. When a soldier is killed it is sad. But my request to you is to be happy. Don't be sad that you are bidding me farewell. Sing, plant joy in your hearts, hold each other's hands, hold on to each other and give each other strength. "⁶

At the Square

At Hostage Square, a man from our town who was apparently protesting the protest set fire to a mannequin that was part of a display, He was arrested. The local news site said, "There is no limit to nastiness." At least Google Translate says that the word meant "nastiness." It may have other nuances.⁷

The Museum of Art, which is one of several institutions (including a large library and the opera house) at Hostage Square, had shut down and had hidden away some of its priceless art work at the start of the war. Now, it has opened a "healing space" initiative, in which it overtly connects itself to the space of the demonstrations and public art. The Museum's CEO has said:

"The entrance through the Hostage Square creates a direct and open line between the general public and the museum, and the physical and emotional distance between the interior and the exterior is shrinking, and naturally, the museum's displays are all charged with additional layers of meaning."⁸

Going down a YouTube rabbit hole, I have come across some intriguing dance performances at Hostage Square. In one video, a sort of flamenco flash mob comes together, dancing to a song, "Come Back Home."⁹

Another group has been performing there¹⁰ each¹¹ Saturday¹² night,¹³ using simple movements, dancing with images of the hostages. Each performance has been posted to YouTube, often several times with different¹⁴ angles¹⁵, with some in 360-degree¹⁶ views.¹⁷

All use the same song, "To See the Light" by Ofra Gosh, but the ambient soundscapes leak in. Sometimes babies cry in the distance. In one, workmen roll a metal rack right through the middle of the performance, and a voice from behind the crowd hawks "Beygele!"

Cowabungle

An article in the extreme-right website WND¹⁸ claims that the October 7th invasion and massacre was due to a move by Christian Zionists¹⁹ to sacrifice red heifers near the Temple Mount. They source some of the story to this interesting article in the Arabic-language Al-Jazeera (which is a very different publication from the English-language site)²⁰ and to a speech by a pseudonymous Abu Obeida, quoted in the Palestine Chronicle.²¹

That Christian sect, as well as some Jewish groups, believe that the sacrifice of the tenth red heifer in history will bring about the Messianic Age, however each interprets it. There have already been nine. So this is kind of significant for them, and not a thing that Muslim extremists want to see happening right near Al-Aqsa.

The Bible and later texts put great importance on the red heifer.²² The Quran apparently has similar ideas about a yellow cow.²³ I guess the writer never saw a purple cow.²⁴

Such a Celebration

After work, I have supper with my family at the House of a Hundred Grandmothers. They help me with medical forms and appointments. Our systems can be cryptic, especially to those of us who panic in the face of bureaucracy.

I'm catching up with appointments and tests that I have ignored for the past couple of years, mostly due to not wanting to deal with the paperwork, broken websites, and unintelligible communications.

Fortunately, my primary doctor speaks English. (Now that I know that it happens, I can hear her route her sentences around words that she can't find, much as I do in Hebrew.) I somewhat enjoyed one thing that she told me yesterday: "Now that you've turned 65, you get to have shots for pneumonia and shingles. It's just our way of saying 'Mazal Tov!'"

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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.