Page 44 - HaMizrachi #10 Yom Yerushalayim - Shavuot 5779

Yaniv FLYING
ANSWERS!
TO ISRAEL

Editor’s note: Our resident, totally unofficial Israeli guide brings you insights into a lighter side of the Israeli
experience you won’t likely find in the usual news sources. Yaniv will also respond to readers’ questions and

observations (non-halachic of course). He can be reached at yaniv@mizrachi.org. Enjoy!

Q: I’m planning on taking my first trip to Ben-Gurion – for whom the airport do usually get to where you’re going
is named – spinning in his grave; he – unless it gets too close to Shabbat,
Israel this summer. Any flying tips? craved silence, which is why he retired and then you’ll land at whatever
to the stillness of Sde Boker. airport is still in daylight. (On any
A: Dear Unsuspecting First-Time Traveler, flight leaving from Wednesday on, I
More than 100 different airlines always take along challah and a bottle
The first thing you should know service BG, but the most well-known, of grape juice, just in case.) Along the
is that Israel likes to travel. of course, is El Al. If you’ve never way, children will merrily play in the
No, that is not a typo; I really flown the state’s official airline, aisles, the person in front of you will
do mean Israel, not just Israelis. If then you are in for, well, let’s just say recline into your lap for several hours
it seems like the entire country is you better buckle your seat and get and, if you were lucky enough to score
moving, it is – no less than 50% of ready for – anything. Imagine a huge an aisle seat, the person seated at the
the population traveled abroad in the Brooklyn tenement house turned window will need to use the bathroom
past year, to virtually every corner of horizontal, with wings attached, and 17 times – all between midnight and 6
the planet (except for the 15 countries you’re starting to get the picture. am.
that bar Israelis from entering, as if Overheads are overloaded, seat
we’d want to go there!). The booming selection is largely up for grabs – “I’m But all this is good prep for the days
economy, the strength of the shekel not sitting next to that person!” – and and weeks you’ll spend in the Holy
versus most other currencies, and the there’s so much schmoozing going on Land; by the time you escape – I mean
natural wanderlust of the average Jew and Jewish Geography being played exit – the plane, you’ll be ready to face
combine to make this a nation on the that it seems the plane will never take just about anything you encounter on
move – literally. off. Please note, no matter what you the streets and highways of our fair
might have heard, the initials ELAL do land. Maybe that’s why El Al’s slogan
And even as masses of Israelis perform not stand for “Every Landing Always is, “Hachi BaBayit BaOlam, we’re just
their personal Exodus out of the Late.” like home anywhere in the world!”
country, more and more tourists are Gulp.
coming in – a record 4,100,000 landed But the stewards and stewardesses
here in 2018. All told, more than 23 (stewardi?) have nerves of steel, the Feel free to send me any other
million people passed through Israeli pilots are used to flying in combat
passport control last year. Which situations, and the food is kosher, if perplexing questions you have:
means the airport is always crowded, not gourmet, and so eventually you
which might have dear old David yaniv@mizrachi.org

44 |