This tile began to be written in 2014 as part of the interdisciplinary project "City of Refuge". This is one of the 963 pavements that will eventually be in the "City of Refuge", a number I determined based on the number of tiles in the Habima Square in Tel Aviv, which cover the doors embedded in the ground of the square and lead to the shelter beneath it.

The text consists of a reflection on daily life in Israel and Tel Aviv, following a diary I wrote during a year when I sat in the square in the mornings, before the start of the workday, and after I brought my little daughter to kindergarten. It corresponds with the question of the "city of refuge" in the Babylonian Talmud - in the Talmud, the text itself is a city of refuge, i.e. a special discussion space designed to break bloodshed. The shape of the pavement is influenced at the same time by the tiles covering the doors of the shelter in the square, and by the shape of the page of the Babylonian Talmud. It requires spatial writing/reading, meaning a fragmented, wandering movement that encounters both saturation and the loss of meanings.

So far, about 210 tiles have been created.

Now, when we have begun to re-count reality after October 7, something in the counting of the tiles continues - determined to maintain the close attention and investigation to which "City of Refuge" is commited. Yet, something is also muted, struck. And I'm still looking for a way of counting that will be correct now, a way of continuing as well as a way of stopping.

Typographic design and interpretation: Roei Regev.

Music: Composition and performance: Maureen Nehedar, "I Shall Praise You", from the album "Asleep in the Bosom of Childhood"; Lyrics: Abraham Ibn Ezra.

Drawing Between Arabic and Hebrew: Safa Kadah, from a sketchbook, 2020.

The author thanks Yosefa Raz for her help with the English translation of this passage, and Almog Behar for his help in choosing the liturgical hymn.