Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2024-03-21
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...
"Have a good day." The cashier hands a receipt to the customer in line ahead of me.
"As good a day as I can, considering," the customer says. She is wearing a headscarf and a long, blue dress. The little girl with her has a tutu and a gold crown and scepter. The girl is fidgeting,
"Considering? Oh, right, the fast."
For the religious, today is a fast day, the Fast of Esther. It happens on the day before Purim, more or less. Since Purim is on Sunday, and we don't want to have relatively minor fast days on Friday or Shabbat, it slides back to today.
"At least it's a short day," the customer says, then pauses. "It is a short day, isn't it?"
It isn't. It's close to exactly an average length. Coincidentally, it’s the equinox, the first day of spring.
"Did you at least get breakfast?" the customer asks.
"I did. Today, it's a good thing that I have to be at the store early."
Unlike the major fast days, such as Tisha B'Av and Yom Kippur, the fast only goes from sunrise to sunset, like it does for our neighbors during Ramadan. My calendar says that today’s fast runs from 4:30 AM to 6:23 PM.
"I wish I did. I was up too late making this one's costume."
"It looks good." The cashier looks down at the girl. "Are you Queen Esther?"
The girl snuggles closer to her mother. The mother yawns.
"The secular ones, they'll never understand. But it's our duty."
The cashier nods and yawns in sympathy. "It is our duty. Have an easy fast. And a Shabbat shalom. And a happy Purim."
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.