Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2024-03-29
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...
"This bread --" the cashier taps the loaf's wrapping with a tobacco-yellowed fingernail -- "this bread is from Wednesday. It is not from today." I tell him that that's OK. It's the bread I want. Two days shouldn't make much difference. "Then good. I just wanted you to know."
He speaks again a moment later. "This red pepper rolled out of the bag of the other red peppers. I weighed them already. This will be another item. The price for all of them, two plus one being three, will be the same as if I had weighed all three together."
He begins to put everything in a larger bag. He sees that I am already holding a cloth shopping bag. He stops and takes them out again. Getting another shopping bag would cost a tiny bit more. I put everything in my own bag.
He rings me up and hands me the receipt. "Shabbat shalom." Shabbat shalom.
Outside the shop, two people stand by a motorcycle. The man slowly lowers a bright pink helmet onto the woman's head, as if he were crowning her with a tiara.
In my usual café, a woman about my age pulls a round table near the wall closer to the center of the room. She collects five chairs and places them around it.
A man comes in and sits at a different table. She joins him there and pulls even more chairs around it. They spread their dishes around the full circumference of the table. They don't want anyone to doubt that the entire turf is theirs.
I head out again in the late afternoon. A garden hose, suspended waist-high, blocks the top of the stairs. There's just enough space between the hose and a potted plant for me to squeeze between them. Once I'm free, I reach behind myself and pull out leaves that have gotten stuck in my suspenders.
This first Shabbat after the start of Daylight Savings Time has some people confused. One resident at the House of a Hundred Grandmothers moved in permanently at the start of the war, and is experiencing his first time zone shift at the House. He sees that we are saying Kiddush in the dining hall before Shabbat technically starts at 6:40 PM. While sunset, which starts Shabbat and the holidays, drifts back and forth on the clock, supper at the House always starts precisely at 6:30 PM.
My family, the key experts in Jewish practice at the House, know of a doctrine that says it's OK to expand Shabbat, though not to shorten it. Thus, they light the electric candles in their apartment before they go down to the dining hall, and always say Kiddush at the same time. The staff and residents at the House follow their lead.
Kiddush tonight is strong, though many people aren't there. Some are off with families. Tables have been set for some others who don't show up. They also may be away. Residents are supposed to let the front desk know if they won't be around, as well as when they come and go. Despite the rule, some don't.
The server rolls her cart from table to table, moving from the front of the hall to the back. I'm surprised. I had thought that she would always go from the back to the front. My family tells me that she actually alternates directions. Sometimes the tables in the back are served first. Sometimes it's the tables in the front. I had never noticed this.
It's finally dark by the time that I head home. I greet one dog and the usual array of cats along the way. The hose is gone from the top of the stairs, neatly rolled up on the side as usual. I hear one of the morning birds as I open my door. It doesn't know that the clocks have changed, but somehow it's confused, too.
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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.
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.