February 2, 2024

Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2024-02-01

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...

---

The display above the pharmacy counter usually shows, among other screens, the logos of the four national health plans that they support. Waiting there this evening, I see that they have added a fifth. They now will fill prescriptions from the Army.

Fewer people than usual are waiting with me there. When I take a number, only five people are ahead of me. I sit in one of the empty chairs and watch the people and screens.

Eventually, my number appears, along with the number of the window that's ready for me.

I hand the pharmacist my card and number. I don't think I've seen her before. Most of the pharmacists have Arabic names. Many wear headscarves. This one has a Russian name and accent, with blond hair and blue eyes.

I tell her what I need, saying the two words in Hebrew. She immediately responds in English. I'm relieved to hear that they have what I need in stock. The last pharmacy was out of it. I get three months' worth. I now have three months of everything. I don't want to have to worry about supply chains or other problems whose probability has increased in recent months.

I stop at my usual café after the pharmacy. To my shock, they are out of sachlav. I settle for a hot cider. I like how they serve it, in a glass tea cup with a cinnamon stick pressed through the center of a slice of dried apple.

As I drink the cider, I look through my mail and news on my phone. My family has sent a lot of links. One in particular catches my eye, but it's quite long. I tag it to read later.

I see that my favorite record label, the one celebrated at the residency that I went to London to see some years back, has put out a new compilation. It's a retrospective from their recent releases, presented as a benefit for medical aid across the border.¹

It's an excellent collection. I already have most of the music on it. If you're inspired to get it, tomorrow would be a great day to do so. It's BandcampFriday, so all the proceeds would go to the cause, without Bandcamp taking a cut.

Most of the news is about things that might be happening, or echoes of things that already have. A rally a few days ago, packed with extremists, promoted the idea of their establishing new settlements across the border.² Everyone with any authority, except for our usual lunatic cabinet ministers, has been saying, "Hell, no," as forcefully as possible.³

The families of hostages have been getting more militant in trying to force their return. For several days, they tried to block humanitarian aid from crossing the border. The Army declared where they were gathering to be a closed military zone. They moved to one of our major ports, where they are trying to block the trucks going from there to the border crossings.⁴

An alert from my transit app tells me that buses will be rerouted on Saturday night near Hostage Square. The roads going past it will be closed again for another rally. Other references suggest that the rally will be focused at Army headquarters, right across the street.

Reacting to these events is politically tricky. Police don't want to be seen arresting or fighting with the families. They are popular, and have a strong publicity team.

On the other hand, the government has promised both to get the hostages back ASAP and to completely crush the terrorists. It seems clear that these goals can't happen together.

To find some resolution, there are new Paris peace talks going on, with lots of different countries trying to broker a deal. Rumors keep getting floated as to what might happen, but no one seems to have any solid information.

I stay at the café longer than I need to, but eventually drift home. I zip up my raincoat. It's chilly but dry.

Walking along the pedestrian street, I see that the snails have retreated to wherever they hide between storms. The cats are prowling. Some have gathered near our trash heap, where humans scatter food for them in the evenings. Our usual hedgehog skitters across the path outside the landlord's porch.

I get inside and start to file away what I've gotten from the pharmacy. I hear booms outside, long and rumbling. It's thunder. The rain returns. I'm glad that I'm staying indoors for the rest of the night.

---

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.)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

L'hitraot.