February 7, 2024

Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2024-02-06

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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When I step outside this morning, I'm surprised to see that it isn't raining. The sky is a hazy blue, not like the lumpy cloud cover that my father used to call "mattress stuffing." (I can't vouch for his description. I don't think I've ever looked inside a mattress. I haven't torn the tag with all the warnings off of one, either.)

I'm wearing my raincoat and baseball cap, just in case. The sidewalks are dry, except for the pedestrian street. Workmen in the yard next door, at the corner, are bailing out the lake that has built up, so they can get back to whatever it is that they are doing.

The dry weather is almost disorienting. The local news site makes it the lead story, with pictures of the dry park, plus video of some of the earlier rain.¹

I actually get some things done at work today. I figure out what has to be done to update one manual that customers need. It looks like I wrote it several years ago. I don't remember doing so, but I structured it well enough to make updating it relatively easy.

The New York Times has the dismaying announcement, echoed by other media, that our government now says that at least thirty of the 136 remaining hostages are now assumed to be dead.² The number has been fluctuating in different reports, but the information seems solid.

They're in the process of informing their families. I think we'll have a list fairly quickly. The grieving families probably won't be able to keep the information secret for long, so the Army will put out an official list.

This may shift some of the balance between the camps demanding an immediate release, those demanding a ceasefire, and those demanding that we do whatever it takes to eliminate the terrorists. My hunch is that more people will shift to the latter group, empowering the dangerously aggressive members of the government.

The head of the Opposition is warning us about the Minister of National Security (about whom I've been continually complaining here).³ He says that if the minister is still in charge of the Temple Mount (also known as Al Aqsa) when Ramadan starts, about a month from now, the region will "go up in flames":

“We didn’t need the interview in the Wall Street Journal to remind us that Ben Gvir is a dangerous clown who prefers to light fires instead of putting them out, but during Ramadan this could cause an all-out conflagration that would cost human lives.”

A reservist who recently returned from duty across the border writes that the major city there was actually quite beautiful, not like the "open air prison" that others have described.⁴ I would take what he says with the proverbial grain of salt, but it's worth a read.

One of his claims appears to be off, though. He casts doubt on the numbers of casualties announced by the Ministry of Health, which is an arm of their supposed government and thus of the terrorists. A recent article from a journal that, admittedly, has biases opposite to his, claims that their intelligence sources say that the numbers do seem accurate.⁵

It's dark, as usual in winter, when I head out from work. A streetlight has gone out over a brick path on my way. It cuts across a block, past some kindergartens and an open field, from Sons of Benjamin Street to either Kings of Israel or Kings of Judah Street. The two Kings streets fork about a half block away, and I can never remember which fork has which name.

I'm not all that concerned. I have literally walked that path over a thousand times in five years of going back and forth to work. I keep going at my usual pace.

That's a mistake. A descending staircase on the path starts about a foot earlier than I expect. I hit the edge of the top step with my heel and start to fall.

It goes down four steps before leveling out. My feet hit some of them, but my upper body is hurtling forward. I land on the level bricks at the bottom, still running. I know that I'm going to crash into the ground completely after a few steps.

I do. I have enough time, in that way that perception shifts in accidents, to plan my fall. I put my hands out in front of me, but don't lock my elbows. My hands hit the ground first, followed by my knees. My head slams down toward the bricks, but the stiff brim of my baseball cap keeps my face from danger. So that's what the brim's for. Thank you, cap.

I roll a bit with the momentum, ending up lying on the path, facing upward. I do an inventory before trying to move. I don't feel any unexpected pain. I can tell that I have some scrapes on my hands. Everything that was in my pockets still is there.

I'm not holding my phone anymore. I see it about a foot out of reach. Only my right earbud is in place. The plastic slap that I heard when landing was my left one falling out.

I roll onto my hands and knees. By sheer luck, I feel the left earbud under one hand. It would have been hard to find in the dark. I pick up my phone. Nothing appears broken.

I try to stand up, but fall again. I've never been good at getting up from the floor. I look around for something to help me. I see some metal posts supporting the fence on the far side of the path, about two meters away. I crawl over to it, grasp it hand over hand until they're high enough, then pull myself to standing.

I stand there, holding on and regaining my balance. I put my left earbud back in my ear. The podcast that I was listening to is still playing, in appropriate stereo sound. Everything still works. Good. I realize that, while I usually encounter several dogs and their people as I walk on the path, none have come by. That figures.

When I get home, I check myself for damage. I have a few scrapes on my hands, but nothing serious. I can feel a bit of soreness where my shoulder and hip hit the bricks as I rolled, but I really only notice it when thinking about it. I had thought that I had scraped one knee against the inside of my jeans, but it and the jeans are OK.

I tell a relative on WhatsApp what has happened. They send me a video on how to get up.⁶ It's useful. I think I did as close to the right thing as I could, there on the dark path.

I sit at my computer with my eyes closed, catching up with myself. After a while, I get up, walk a bit stiffly into the kitchen, make supper, then come back to the computer to write this.

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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.

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L'hitraot.