Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2025-06-16
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...
The tchoketa-tchoketa-tchoketa of the Home Front Command app, like a soundtrack to '70s robot porn, awakens me after midnight Monday morning. It's the alert before the alarm, or perhaps the alert before the alert. They make the same sound.
I go out into my hall at the House of a Hundred Grandmothers with my kitchen chair, sit, and wait. A normally talkative neighbor is already out there, sitting slumped on her walker. Her caregiver gestures to me: "Be quiet. She's OK. Sleeping."
The alarm never comes. After a long wait, I stumble back inside. Lesson learned: I'm not going into the hallway until I actually hear sirens.
I go back to sleep in my comfy chair. Several times during the night, I wake up. With my eyes still closed, I run through a litany to figure out where I am. Am I sitting on something hard? No. So I'm not in the hallway. Are my head and feet raised? Yes. I'm in my comfy chair in the living room.
I never do get into bed during the night. I had brought down my laundry at lunchtime, and hadn't made my bed with the other set of sheets afterward.
Another tchoketa-like alert awakens me at about 4 AM. I stay in the big chair. A few minutes later, when I hear the real sirens, I head out into the hall. My neighbors are awake and talkative again. We hear the biggest booms yet. Aircraft fly low overhead. We go back inside when we hear a mumbled announcement from the loudspeakers.
I sleep late enough that I fear that I have missed the breakfast and supper delivery, but after a few minutes, I hear my doorbell. A server, along with another member of the top staff, is there with the cart. The server likes me, perhaps because (unlike almost everyone else at my table in the Dining Hall and those nearby) I tend not to complain. She usually shows this by giving me way too much food.
She can tell that I'm bleary and that my waking mind hasn't quite kicked in. She guides me through the choices, pointing out what is available, and which I should eat for breakfast and which for supper.
I see in the news that there have been impacts with casualties in cities along our local transit lines. There were deaths within one shelter -- as powerful as the walls are, almost nothing can stop a precise direct hit from a massive, unimpeded missile.
There have also been impacts with casualties in a major city. Friends and, I found out today, relatives live in a neighborhood quite nearby. I'll keep my worries muted unless I hear specific news of them. I'll be in touch with one tomorrow.
It seems that the majority of victims in the past few days have been elderly. It may have to do with people's abilities to react quickly and get to shelters in time.
I also see that cities in Iran have also opened their schools, mosques, and subway stations as shelters. That's good. We're going after military and industrial targets, and would want to minimize civilian casualties where we can.
The local news sites have reported on the shoddy condition of some of our city's shelters. On the municipal WhatsApp, the mayor says that they're working on it. The city asks that people scan barcodes on the public shelters as they enter them. I wonder what the codes do.
The municipal WhatsApp also announces free senior-care services via Uniper (not, as I had first thought, Juniper) and the city. According to the form, people can sign up in Hebrew, Russian, and Israeli Sign Language.
A local news site reports that Sunday evening was quiet along one of the main streets. Lots of people were out walking in the relatively cool air. The city's gym and pool, adjacent to the bakery that had forgotten to lock up, remain open. The building has shelters, and the new advanced alerts give people who are out enough time to take cover before attacks.
I see that the flights that I had mentioned being shut down from Dubai are actually from Abu Dhabi. Oops. I'm tired. Everyone's tired. We're making mistakes. As a rule of thumb, don't trust what people (even me) post on the Internet without checking solid sources. I can be pretty sure about what I see with my own eyes here at the House, but everything else is effectively hearsay, even though I mean well.
I've seen reports that the shelter at the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station is being opened, possibly for the first time since 1991. (The reports are incomplete, vague, or paywalled.) Word has it that it spans 15,000 square meters, and is safe from nuclear attack. I have only been to the station a few times. The building frightens and fascinates me, a monument to steadfast chaos.
I drop down to Continual Care a couple of times to check in on family and help out as I can. On the way out, I see other residents hanging out in the lobbies and the enclosed patio. I stop over to one who is sitting in a corner and ask how he's doing. He thanks me and wishes me well. He's one of our crankiest, most annoying and demanding neighbors. I suspect he doesn't get many friendly greetings.
At 8:30 PM, just as I sit down to compile and rewrite these notes, another tchoketa goes off. I drink some water, sit down in my comfy chair, and put on i24 News. The reporters are repeating themselves. I switch to the French language part of the app. Bibi is giving a news conference. I doubt that I miss much content in the translation.
After about forty minutes, they call off the alert. OK, then. I go back to my computer. I'll finish sending this, then should probably make my bed.
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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.