Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2024-03-27
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...
A man walks backwards in the parking lane of the street where I work. He holds a hose whose source I can't see, spraying down the asphalt. A truck follows him, scrubbing the street with twin spinning brushes. If a disk were following behind the truck, I would guess that they were practicing for a form of urban curling.[^curl]
On my way up to work, two women with large baby carriages get into a small elevator with me. Somehow, we all fit. The elevator stops at two more floors before it reaches mine. On each, another person (one man, one woman) with a baby carriage wants to join us. There's no more room. There wouldn't be enough for another carriage even if I got off.
The carriages are headed to the floor above mine. I have to get off first. I'm in a back corner. I think of telling them that I can just ride with them for one more floor, then come back down alone. By the time that I figure out how to say that, they maneuver out of the elevator. They wait until I step out between them, then get back in and resume their ride.
The local news site has yet another piece on our Purim festivities a couple of days ago.[^pur] There's a tradition, called Purimon, where scouts put on events in various cities. The mayors make their rounds, appearing at them.
Our new mayor has changed the city's slogan back to an older one.[^slo] In 2013, it had become something like "Vision and fulfillment." Before then and now again, it's "If you desire it."
That's a reference to the city's namesake, Theodor Herzl. He famously said of the dream of coming back here, "If you desire it, it isn't a legend."
The mayor announced, "If you want to fulfill yourself, Herzliya is the city for you."
Another expert in urban warfare has detailed the extraordinary and unprecedented steps our Army has been taking to avoid civilian casualties across the border.[^urb] This has been made more difficult, or course, by the terrorists' moves to cower among the populace. They are trying to cause as much damage and carnage as possible among the civilians, which they can then try to blame on us.
The people who are yelling about "genocide" should look at this information and the actual data about how casualties are progressing. It's clear that if anyone intends indiscriminate slaughter of innocent people, it is their own supposed government.
Once again, the terrorists are proving that if you don't care about people's lives, it's easy to manipulate people who do.
Daniel Gordis's podcast has an extended interview with the former head of the National Archive.[^arch] Things there are a mess. Just about no one can access the files. There was a cyberattack last year. After it, they discovered that there had been so much staff turnover, losing institutional knowledge, that no one knows how to put the old systems back together.
Another problem is that the archive reports to the prime minister's office. Best practices for archives elsewhere have them outside government, so things don't get compromised by changes of leaders.
The US Archive is a fierce and valuable group. They've been involved with the battles over the archival material that officials have, wittingly or not, taken home with them.
While there are significant differences between library and archive work, a library director in Berkeley famously said:
“You don’t want to mess with the public documents librarians. They are the pit bulls of democracy.”[^brk]
As I had guessed, our Eurovision team had shot a full video for our initial submission, "October Rain," before political nonsense on the part of the international Powers That Be caused a change in the lyrics and title to the less effective "Hurricane."[^oct]
A bit of the original has leaked.[^eur] They only had to change a few words and redo some shots and edits for the new version. My hunch is that the full original song and video will be officially released after Eurovision is over.
"One hundred and twenty, as usual?"
This time, I actually understand what the woman at the burger counter is saying as she greets me. I like the medium-sized burger, which weighs 120 grams. I say, "Yes."
She rattles off the details: "Fried onions, barbecue sauce, lettuce, tomatoes, and ketchup on the side for the fries?" I haven't been there in about a month. She's only served me twice. Her memory is astounding.
I'm very sightly peeved, though. I had gone to the trouble of looking up how to say "fried onions" before I got there, since I had forgotten it. But I didn't have to say it. Oh, well.
There's one table left on the sidewalk in front of the shop. It's next to a couple of young men who are talking loudly in Russian and smoking. Fortunately, the breeze is blowing away from me. And they leave before my order is ready.
When it is, the worker hollers, "Sir, with the fried onions?" That's my cue. I'm almost surprised that she doesn't call my name. So many other people seem to know it.
The burger is delicious. I eat it while reading news on my phone.
When I'm done, I clear my plate and related items from the table and place them in the trash. I make sure that my soda can is on top.
A moment later, a thin man in a hoodie appears out of nowhere. He makes his way among the trash bins on the street, collecting the cans and bottles and putting them in a plastic bag dangling from his wrist. He has a lot of them. If he gets enough of them, he will be able to cash them in at a shop. He, too, will be able to get something to eat.
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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.