Thursday, February 25th, 2021

A truck rolls slowly past our office building, blasting holiday music. We’re four stories up, behind closed windows. The music is too loud for me to work. I stop and listen. The melody is something like “Pick a Bale of Cotton.” The lyrics are probably in Hebrew, but may be Yiddish. There’s a good jazz piano solo in the midst of it, which sounds like someone I used to know in Brooklyn thirty years ago. Otherwise, the song rumbles and thumps. I hear the music again as I wait outside the burger joint for my order. The van comes gradually into view. At first, I think it’s a gaudy garbage truck. It’s about that size. The door to the back is open. Inside, I see a wall of black speakers, two meters tall and wide. Someone I can’t see is talking over the music, ignoring its rhythm. He may be in the cab. If he’s also driving, it might be good that the truck is that slow. Many of the other people outside are walking their dogs. An all-night curfew starts in less than an hour. There will be fines for being more than a kilometer from one’s house or for visiting anyone. People usually party en masse on Purim. Not this year, or at least not tonight. The curfew lifts at dawn. There will no doubt be parties during the day in religious enclaves, illegal but too big to shut down. The burger shop owner calls my name. I hear him through the open door. I go in and pick up my supper. He and I wish each other a happy holiday. I wander home, listening to a podcast about the recent storms in Texas. Here, for now, it’s reasonably warm and dry.