January 24, 2024

Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2024-01-24

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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It stops raining by the time I head home from work. People, in a steady stream, walking in twos and threes, pass me going the other way. Some are carrying flags.

Groups of young people stand around in clusters. Most of them wear green uniforms. Most carry guns.

In the cemetery next door to my office, the funeral of a local soldier is about to begin.¹ I'm not going. I don't like crowds. One block over, people have been asked to line the sidewalks for the procession. The local news site will probably have photos.

I listen to podcasts of war news as I walk.² Families of hostages have been protesting more actively. Some have stormed a meeting of our parliament's finance committee.³ Others, in a move reminiscent of Occupy (who, after all, learned the tactic from protests in this part of the world), have pitched tents outside the prime minister's residences.⁴

Thousands of more protesters, the largest group seen together since before the war, have blocked the major highway through the next city over.⁵ Hundreds have blocked aid trucks on the border.⁶

Released hostages are testifying at an investigation about sexual violence against those killed and captured in the terrorists' invasion.⁷ Commentators say that the terrorists may be keeping the Red Cross away from the remaining hostages and may be wary of releasing more, because people would then see what is being done to them.

I stop the player when the podcast ends and walk in silence to clear my head.

I get supper at the chicken joint on the city square. I haven't been there in a while. I get the usual salad. It's different each time, since the owner adds in stuff that he has left at the end of the day. I can't identify some of what's in there, but it's good.

I sit at a table just outside the door. A woman's voice behind me is singing, zooming through melismatic riffs punctuated by laughter. A man's voice near her offers comments that I can't hear clearly enough to understand. Cats wander by and look up at me, pleading to be fed. I know that other people on the square regularly feed them proper cat food.

Couriers on motorcycles and electric bikes zoom past. Some stop near me and head into the shop to pick up meals to deliver. People from the university wander by, speaking English. Men in yellow vests walk the other way, speaking Arabic and what may be Chinese.

WhatsApp messages from family tell me that they have gotten caught up in bureaucratic bungling by our health plan. Expensive but necessary cab rides have taken them to a medical center for a confirmed appointment. The center tells them that it doesn't actually have the equipment to do the test that they need. Going from the lobby back to the cab, they get caught in more sudden rain.

I listen to more podcasts as I walk the rest of the way home. The rain doesn't resume until after I get there.

I see that I have left clean laundry strewn across my bed. I'll have to put it away before I go to sleep. When I have left it there in the past and tried to sleep around it, It has usually ended up on the floor.

I make some tea with honey and lemons from a friend's tree and take my nightly medicine with it. I eat the last clementine in my refrigerator. I'll have to get more.

That's all I can eat tonight. I have a routine blood test in the morning, so I have to fast for twelve hours until then. Grr. I'll try to go to bed early, after I write and post this. I doubt that I'll succeed.

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Feel free to forward the newsletter to other people who might be interested.

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.