Are You Sure Your Flight is This Week?

        

        Well, that seemed awfully familiar.* Stuck behind the entire group, hoping for a travel agent to find some record that a ticket had been purchased for one “Elias Horowitz.” On Ramah Seminar in 2011, a similar muck up had happened, and again the plane had just barely waited. Luckily, the wonderful travel agent pulled her weight and ensured that a seat was available. While the trip so far has been quite the repeat, the rest of the itinerary promises new perspective on past experiences.

"Hey Eema, you can go to sleep. I'm going to Israel for real this time!"

Nicole Wildstein, ready for a restful flight

Gaby Dinkin, clearing customs and clearly happy about it

The other "Eli" on the trip. This could get interesting.

                The airport is another reminder of the variety of people that come together for random common purposes. A flight to Israel for Birthright to a college student is visit to a sick father in Netanya to a woman from Brooklyn, or a bar mitzvah at the Western Wall to a proud mother from Connecticut. Having been delayed an hour and a half and separated from the group, I catch up with a group of Israelis looking for the same gate. At first, they thought they had stumbled on a Birthright trip with a total of one participant, and showed more disbelief in the actual story than their version of events. The Israelis were ending a ten-day trip of their own; after completing their service, they were invited to meet a group of Afghanistan and Iraq War veterans.

Matt Re, giving a shoutout for peace in the Middle East

                El Al seating was the usual mess of hundreds of people shuffling seats trying to find space next to their friends and family. Because the ticket was issued last minute, the rest of the St. Louis Hillel trip was on the opposite end of the plan and the designated seat, 35E, was already taken. Seats by familiar faces filled up quickly with other Birthright groups, forcing me to the front of the plane. By now, the seat had somehow cleared, and the first real friend of the trip was in seat 35D. Annetta is also on an Israel Outdoors trip, although one focused on 22-26 year olds. As recent graduate from Temple University, she will be spending her summer after the trip on a cruise from Italy to Spain. Given that we are at such different periods in our lives, talking with her was an opportunity to see the Birthright experience from another perspective. And hopefully, it will be again, since our extensions landed us on the exact same flight home.

The El Al flight just after landing.

A very creative, very Israeli icebreaker that involved scotch tape, noses, and uncomfortable infringements of personal space.

That’s about it, since for a short day, it was pretty full of excitement.

*I have to apologize in advance to my readers. I have promised my creative writing teacher, April Zabinsky that I would include a writing challenge for myself in each blog post that reflected weaknesses I saw in my writing. This time, I’ve chosen to exclude any references to myself in sentences—namely the words “I,” “me,” “mine,” “myself,” and whatever else comes to mind. So if the writing gets too dreary, just enjoy the pictures. I’ll give myself three strikes.

Home sweet home for the next two days: Neve Shalom