Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2024-04-06
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...
I make shakshuka for breakfast, as usual, after posting the newsletter. I sit in my big chair, doing nothing, for much of the afternoon. For a late lunch, I heat up cholent again.
In the park, I see that the first of the year's fruit from the giraffe tree has fallen.1
On the street up to the House of a Hundred Grandmothers, a stuffed lion sits atop a mound of trash. I imagine sitting on the ground and cuddling with it.
At the House, my family gets to discussing the purpose of prayer. They are devoutly religious. I am more agnostic. I find it a way to connect to community.
I notice, in the afternoon prayers, that I don't relate to the text as much as to the sounds and movements. They're different in different traditions. I doubt that any two of us in the office hallway do the same ones. My favorite points are the three steps back and forth at the beginning and end of the silent prayer, the rocking back and forth and occasional bowing during it, and the way that two "Z" sounds pop out above the murmuring as we turn to face our left and right in a verse of the liturgy early on. I also like the rhythms and occasional alliterations of the text.
(Writing this, I flash on a bit of Buddhist liturgy that I haven't thought of in some thirty years: "Nyoze sho. Nyoze tai. Nyoze riki. Nyoze sa. Nyoze in. Nyoze en...")2
Similarly, the Havdalah ceremony that marks the end of Shabbat involves recurring melodies, drinking wine, smelling spices, and waving our hands over lights. I find it more involving than just speaking words.
When I get to the House's lobby to leave the building, the doors are locked. They usually open automatically. Three women, who I think work in the dining hall, are waiting there, speaking among themselves in Arabic. The leader gets on the announcement system and asks the front desk worker, in Hebrew, to come back.
He shows up a few minutes later, apologizing. Apparently the director had told him to lock the doors when he isn't right there. He unlocks them. We leave.
Heading home, I see that the lion has disappeared from the mound of trash. That's good. I hope that it has found an appropriate person to cuddle with.
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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.