Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2025-06-15
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...
Around 11 PM Saturday night, Home Front Command sends out the alert before the alarm, saying that missiles are on their way. Several of us head out into the hallway, here at the House of a Hundred Grandmothers. The alarm doesn't happen. Sometime later in the hour, the voice on the overhead audio system mumbles something about the shelters. We either have to enter them or are free to go back to the apartments. None of us are quite sure. We pick up our chairs and head back to our beds.
The news tells us that the missiles ended up near Haifa. Later, we find out that four women, all from the same Arab family in a nearby town, including a schoolteacher and a noted university student, are among the dead.
The official municipal WhatsApp sends out a message about new sets of alerts from Home Front Command. That first one apparently was just to tell us to be near a shelter. Another one (which I don't think I've seen or heard yet) will say that there will be missiles in ten minutes. The usual alarms will tell us to get into a shelter within a minute and a half and stay there for at least ten minutes. The app should tell us when to head back home.
Sometime after 2 AM, there are more app alerts. I get out of bed and sit in my comfy chair, phone in hand.
The real alarms come a while later. I sit outside the door in my kitchen chair. My neighbor is already there. Apparently her caregiver hasn't gotten word on the change in signals, and she's been sitting out there since the 2 AM alert. Other neighbors join us.
There are more big booms, as well as low flying jets. A steady thrumming, maybe a helicopter, is nearby. One caregiver who had worked as an aircraft technician is away. Her hearing and knowledge are so acute that she could probably tell us the aircraft's model, brand, and color. (Now I'm vaguely remembering a commercial from years back that used that gag.)
Conversation flies around the family WhatsApp group, as well as the one for my ensemble south of Tel Aviv. We're all safe, though some there had to walk for quite a distance to get to the community shelter. One person has been reported killed in another city to the south, where I would get off the train for rehearsals (until they shut down the station at the start of the war due to the shortage of railway personnel).
Early reports tell of impacts in cities near here, with some injuries. Additional rockets have come in from Yemen. (As usual, it seems that the Houthis are desperate for the news to remember that they're out there, too.)
Several of the neighbors go back to bed before we get the all-clear. When we do, one caregiver heads back into the hall, ready to set her employer up in the safe space again. I show her the English-language message from Home Front Command. We can go back to bed. The voice on the overhead system mumbles another announcement. We assume that it's saying the same thing.
An announcement in the morning on the House WhatsApp group updates us on activity schedules starting Monday. Morning exercise, held in the shelter space on the ground floor, will resume as usual. So will most of the club activities, including woodworking, ceramics, and Yiddish conversation. But we still won't be having afternoon activities in the Culture Hall adjacent to the synagogue. Another message tells us that if we're leaving the building, we must check in and out at the front desk. In case of crisis, they need to know who is actually here.
The chief nurse brings lunch to the residents' rooms. I freeze in indecision when she asks me whether I want an apple or a peach. She's seen me do this before. "Here, you can have both."
Another nurse brings up my medications. Each evening starting tomorrow, I'm to bring my empty container to the infirmary myself and pick up the new set.
A musician in the family, here in town, tells us that her insurance doesn't cover her instruments in time of war. She has a lot of them, and her house doesn't have a shelter, so she's worried. She has brought the most valuable instruments with her as she stays with friends, but the rest won't fit in her car.
As of noon, we know that at least six people have died from the building relatively near where we rehearse, which took a direct hit. Photos show damage to all ten floors. But no one within the building's shelters was hurt.
The municipal WhatsApp announces Zoom activities: "FUN in the protected space - for mental resilience." They list online sports and fitness sessions, a lecture for parents on dealing with children in the wake of the situation, online museum tours and family gatherings, workshops and theater lessons for school children, musical activities for little ones, sports lessons for the elderly from home, and other cultural activities. A Facebook message adds that there will be a babysitting service for children of essential workers at one of the schools.
The local paper tells us that the huge new fashion mall, one town over, has opened two parking levels, minus-4 and minus-5, as community shelters, able to hold ten thousand people. People can drive into the shelters. They say that there will be possibilities for long-term stay.
I speak to some staff members and residents in the lobby when I stop down to drop off my laundry. Many admit that they're scared. It's hard for them to stay brave for their children when there are several missile alerts each night. And the confusing change in the alert patterns isn't helping. "Do we need an alert to tell us that there's going to be another alert before the alarm?" I can see use cases for it, but changing the pattern now is proving tricky.
The alert before the alert before the alarm at about 4 PM gives me time to go down to the shelter downstairs for a change. I get a Coke Zero from the soda machine on the way.
People from several blocks around us are gathered by the big TV outside the shelter space when I get there. For them, the sequence of alarms makes sense. They can get to the community shelter in our building without running.
When we hear the actual alert sirens, we head in. There are forty or fifty of us, plus six or seven dogs. Families cluster in portable chairs. Two young girls play checkers. There's no WiFi or phone signal in there, and we can't hear the sirens or announcements.
After ten minutes, people start to wander out. I'm one of the last to leave. The worker at the front desk hasn't heard any confirmation that it's over, but thinks it's OK. As I step away, the app sends the "All Clear."
I stop into Continual Care to check into the relative there, then get a WhatsApp video call from a relative in the States, checking in on us.
I check the news when I get back to my room. No word of impacts or casualties.
The local news site tells us that when the bakery/cafe nearest me shut down abruptly on Friday, the workers, zooming out, didn't lock the doors. Customers showed up on Saturday morning and found it open. Some took pastries and wrote on a paper bag what they took and their phone numbers. Management found out later, and didn't charge the customers.
The Railway Service announces that much of the system has been shut down. The line from my town to the airport is still operating, once an hour, though no flights are arriving or leaving. The head of the Civil Aviation Authority tells us that it may be weeks before citizens abroad can return. Many airlines, including the one from Dubai on which a friend had flown out on the way to the Philippines, are being cautious about saying when they'll renew flights.
The next alert goes off at about 8:30 PM. I now know that I have enough time to drink some water and go to the bathroom. I sit down in my kitchen chair in the hall just as the missile alarms sound. There are booms, but not as big as I've heard before.
Six of us are out in the hall. I'm the only man, and the youngest person other than a caregiver who runs past. All but one of the others have wheeled walkers. Most sit on them on other chairs that they have brought out. One stands. When others offer to bring her a chair, she says that standing with her walker is more comfortable than sitting.
We talk in a combination of Hebrew, English, and a bit of French. One woman smiles and shrugs. She says, as she has said before, "If it's time for me to die, I'll die. I can't do anything about the missiles, so I don't worry about them." Later, she goes back into her room and emerges with a classic broadcast radio. She plugs it into an outlet in the hallway wall. The news in French blares forth. I can't understand it.
After a while, I get the official "All Clear" on the Home Front Command app in English. I show it to the others. The voice on the overhead clearly announces that it's OK to go back to our rooms. We do. We'll probably meet again later tonight.
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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.