Flying into Tel Aviv.
The wing on the plane must have been 30 feet long.
In Philadelphia, we checked into the US Airways waiting area for our flight to Israel. We weren’t in Kansas anymore, Toto. Hebrew was being spoken by several people. Several were wearing Yamahas or black hats with long, curled sideburns. We were definitely tourists there.
On the plane, there was a family of about six with two sons in white shirts and ties like their day and yarmulka. I wondered if they were going to Jerusalem and the Western Wall of the Temple for a bar mitzvah because one of the sons looked about 13. I read that Tuesdays are the traditional day for foreigners to hold that ceremony there. I have been told that a bar mitzvah isn’t held just when a boy reaches manhood at 13. He has to earn it, like an Eagle Scout rank. He has to go to Jewish school and learn Hebrew and pass tests, reciting many verses in Hebrew.
The wings on this plane are extremely long. You need lots of lift to get all this weight off the ground.
The wings on this plane are extremely long. You need lots of lift to get all this weight off the ground.
I feel we are going into a different world. This morning after the pilot woke us up at 6 am EST, a young Jewish man wearing the traditional fedora hat and his phylactery on his forehead stood with his scriptures in hand to say his morning prayer. Marla noticed a leather strap he had wound around his left arm from above the bicep to around the hand. It looked like stripes that she said he put on and then took off after his prayer. I have no idea what it represented, but I will find out.
An hour before landing, the pilot announced that everyone would have to be in their seats half an hour before landing. While standing in line to use the restroom, the young man who had said his prayer walked up behind me. After I greeted him, he commented how smart it was to require everyone to be seated half an hour before landing. He said they would abort the landing if someone was up.
I thought he was referring to the safety factor so no one fell down, but he then said, “Eighty-five percent of hijackings happen within a half hour of landing. There have only been three hijackings of Israeli planes, and two were during that half hour of landing.”
I don’t think about hijackings very much when I fly, rarely, if ever. But as I said, this is a different world.
When we touched down in Tel Aviv, everyone clapped. I have never heard that before on any other flight anywhere in the world. The Jews are happy and grateful to be home.
