On the Road Again (Article #39) 2/8/2007

After a travel free couple of months that saw our family begin to settle into a routine and continue our adjustment to living on a foreign land, it was time to pack my bags again for a trip overseas. With responsibilities for fundraising and public relations as well as coordination of alumni activities, my job requires regular travel overseas. This was something I had specifically looked for when interviewing, yet it can be difficult on Goldie and the kids.

This will be a unique trip. As everyone knows, I am a huge Chicago Bears fan and the Bears had qualified for the Superbowl the prior week. My brother Ozer who is a Chicago Bears season ticket holder, won a raffle for the right to purchase two seats to the game and had offered me the chance to go to the game with him.

My initial reaction was to let him sell the ticket for a major profit, but when my father said that if I don’t go to the game he would be going in my place and my brother wasn’t going to have a chance to sell the extra ticket in any case, I decided to go to the game. (Sorry to disappoint you Dad – again). Had I not been already planning a trip to the USA, there is no way I would have considered going to the game, but it worked out and I had a once in a lifetime opportunity that I could not turn down.

Of course, this made me a hero with not only the American students in our Yeshiva, but also with the teenage population of Beit Shemesh (at least the Americans). Chaim was incredibly disappointed not to be going (he offered to pay for his flight in) but is still incredibly excited that “his team” is in the championships. Ironically, the last time the Bears were in the Superbowl I was in Israel as well, as a post High School student studying in Yeshiva for the year.

Regular readers will know that I continue to lose respect for the Charedi population the longer we live in Israel. My flight to America was delayed for almost an hour because of several Chassidim who were making a huge ruckus over having to sit next to women. Although the El Al cabin crew tried to make accommodations for them, there was always a problem – either because it was too close to a group of teenage girls or in middle seats instead of aisle seats.

Toward the end, there were increasing calls from the other passengers to have these passengers either sit in the seats assigned to them or thrown off the plane so that we could finally be on our way. It got very ugly and thanks to an incredibly patient El Al crew, the seating crisis was eventually worked out and we took off for NY.

For those who are not up on what is happening in Israeli society, there is a battle going on regarding the busses in Beit Shemesh. The Charedi population in Ramat Beit Shemesh Bet or “RBSB” (located between our neighborhood in Beit Shemesh and Ramat Beit Shemesh Aleph) object to the fact that the public busses are not segregated by gender. They actually have a private Charedi bus line that is segregated, yet they still want to have the Egged busses segregated as well.

In order to make their point, they have decided (as usual) to be as violently disruptive to the public as they possibly can get. This means that they will a) throw stones at every bus that drives through their neighborhood and b) turn over the garbage dumpsters in the middle of the street so that the busses can not even get through.

I don’t even know why they HAVE garbage dumpsters. After all, a few months ago they set fire to their dumpsters in protest of the parade happening in Yerushalayim. That the city replaced all the burned out dumpsters is outrageous. Perhaps if there were consequences to their offensive behavior (like having to pay to replace all the damaged municipal property of having no garbage dumpsters) they would behave like actual people.

Yet, we foolishly paid for them to have new dumpsters to dump into the middle of the road as part of their ongoing hooliganism. So I guess some of the problem is our fault, as enablers.

The victims of course are none other than the regular religious public. Our children (both from Beit Shemesh and Ramat Beit Shemesh Aleph) have to take the public (and school) busses through the Charedi areas. With either no busses running because they cannot get through the streets or the kids being terrorized by mobs of Chassidim throwing stones at their busses, these kids have a terrible experience on their way to/from school.

You may think that I am being unduly harsh to the Chassidim/Charedi public. In fact, some of you may even identify closely with members of those communities. In truth, most of the Charedim/Chassidim are normal decent people and it is really only the fringe that is causing the trouble.

However, it is the main group’s lack of action in reigning in these psychopaths that leads me to fault the entire community. If one of my neighbors was throwing rocks at cars or trying to burn a dumpster in protest, I would hope that I and my neighbors would do our utmost to stop him and make sure that he does not cause harm to others. The general Charedi public’s inaction condemns them (in my opinion) as equally guilty with those who are actually causing the direct harm.

The flight was mostly uneventful. As I continue to fly back and forth, I am beginning to get more comfortable with my preparations for the flight. No more getting to the plane more than three hours before departure time. I prefer the day flight for reasons like packing my Talis and Tefillin instead of shlepping them in my carry on and trying to keep close to regular sleep patterns.

My first stop was to visit my father in law as he recuperated from a minor surgical procedure. I know that Goldie was regretting her decision not to come see him and it made her feel comforted somewhat to get a first hand report from me. It is hard to judge which things are important enough to warrant a ticket to the US (plus all the arrangements for our kids) and which we can let slide and we might have missed one here.

After a night’s catching up on some sleep I headed off to Boston on the shuttle. In my last trip, I found myself marked for special security screening on my domestic flights. I didn’t think anything of it initially, since I assumed that most people get screened. However, I ended up being screened both ways on my Boston flights and it has become obvious that the USA thinks that I must be some kind of security threat.

I understand what is happening. I fly in from the Middle East. Since the US is firmly concerned about potential violations of civil liberties, the security forces cannot profile certain racial groups (such as say…Arabs) as potential security risks. However, they also cannot let these people pass through security without significant additional screening for explosives and other hazardous items.

Accordingly, they try to isolate some common fact that these potential terrorists have and then screen every person who fits that profile instead of just their target group. Therefore, as not only a resident of a Middle Eastern country but also someone who has flown from the Middle East to the US in recent days, my file raises a significant flag in their computers and I get screened.

I personally think this is an incredible waste of time and resources. After all, I am not only Jewish, I am also American AND Israeli. I am everything these people hate and want to destroy. This is what you select for security screening? What a joke!

My trip this time serves a dual purpose. As always, I am responsible for a certain amount of fundraising activities in the US and this visit will allow me to meet with people personally to tell them about the Yeshiva and our programs. However, I am also the Director of Alumni and (with our Roshei Yeshiva in town to interview twelfth grade students as applicants for the upcoming academic year) we are having our first Alumni USA Shabbat, on the Yeshiva University campus.

We recently had a terrific visit by fifteen of our alumni who took their winter break time to return and rejoin the Yeshiva if only for a brief period. One of the special things about our Yeshiva is that the guys are entitled to a free plane ticket back to the Yeshiva once during their college years, and are always welcome to join us at any time in the future as well.

The Shabbaton and additional shiurim that our Rabbeim will conduct on various college campuses for our alumni throughout the year are other ways that we can continue to strengthen our connection with our alumni, who we consider to always be a part of our family.

Keeping in touch also allows us to see how they are doing and try to reinforce their commitment to making Torah a part of their lives every day no matter where they are or what they may be doing.

I missed Tu B’Shvat in Israel to be at the Shabbaton. I did bring in some special Israeli dried fruits with me (don’t tell customs) so that I could enjoy them. Goldie told me that the kids all made special Tu B’Shvat projects to bring home and that people told her it was a shame that our first Tu B’Shvat fell out on Shabbat and that we should look forward to a lot more in future years.

As part of her week, Goldie went with two of her girlfriends (and former 5 Towners) Chaia Broderick and Naomi Schwartz on a tiyul to a home directly outside of Kever Rachel to plant trees on the grounds. They were very excited to go, and were really looking forward to taking advantage of being Israeli and contributing to the continued development of our land.

As it turns out, this land was purchased recently by a group of Americans who want to turn the main house into a simcha hall and continue Jewish development in the area around Kever Rachel. Unfortunately, for reasons they would not disclose (they claimed it was for undefined “security concerns”), the army would not let the participants to go outside of the house to do any planting. They had to be satisfied with a tour of the house and a ceremonial planting of a potted tree which will eventually be moved to the outside when they are allowed to plant on the grounds.

They did, however, enjoy a “Tu B’Shvat Seudah” (the first for Goldie and Chaia) while on the tiyul, as part of the tour/program that was coordinated for them.

So while they were disappointed and a little upset that they could not have been informed in advance about the restrictions – they still had a terrific time and I am sure they will continue to look for other opportunities to be a part of our new homeland.