Akatziya felt that, too, but he felt the hunger in his groin even more. He deserved, he required, at least one night of love before leaving home for God knows how long. Before, maybe, coming back in a wheelchair or not at all. He knows he’s an asshole for feeling that way. So he’s an asshole. What else is new?
Dear readers,
In “Akatziya,” the reservist who left the Kama rest area as a hitchhiker in Etti’s car in the last episode, is late in reporting to his unit. He ponders his problem, and his failure to resolve it, as the car heads south toward Gaza.
This episode has a bonus—a fine illustration by my daughter, Mizmor Watzman.
Mizmor studied animation before retraining as a nurse. Take a look at her prize-winning short stop-motion feature, “A Thing So Small,” which has been screened at film festivals around the world.
What I’m Watching
I watch a lot of theater on line. Of course, there’s nothing like being in a theater, but the digital age has made it possible to watch performances that I would never get to see otherwise. There are several services that offer theater on line; my favorite is that of Britain’s National Theater, where last week I saw Grenfell: In the Words of Survivors. This shocking, moving, and artistically perfect play is entirely composed of the actual words, from interviews and investigations, of survivors of the Grenfell Tower conflagration of June 2017, in which 72 people died and many more were injured. Grenfell was public housing—many of the inhabitants were immigrants, or poor, or handicapped, or a combination of these. The fire spread rapidly because, during a renovation, flammable materials had been used in the exterior.
The play resonates strongly with what happened here in Israel on October 7 and in the aftermath of the Hamas massacre. Both calamities could and should have been averted by the authorities; in both cases the government was forewarned but took no action; in both cases, after the killings, the surrounding community stepped into the vacuum left by the government to help the survivors and the homeless. I can’t recommend it too highly.
Besorot tovot,
Haim