Visiting Zachary in Israel

This series of blog posts will review our recent visit to Israel to see Zachary and have an interesting vacation. Zachary, as my regular readers will know, is participating in the United Synagogue NATIV program during his college freshman year. This program spends the first semester studying at Hebrew University or the United Synagogue Yeshiva (Zachary chose Hebrew University) and the second semester doing volunteer work on a kibbutz, in a development town, or in Jerusalem (Zachary chose to do his volunteer work in Yeruham, a development town in the Negev desert, southeast of Beer Sheva.

We planned our visit to coincide with Zachary's winter break between his Hebrew University semester and his time in Yeruham.

We departed San Diego on Sunday, January 19, 2009 on an American Airlines flight to JFK in New York followed by an El Al flight from JFK to Ben Gurion airport in Israel. Through careful planning and management (and a little luck) we accumulated enough air-miles to acquire 2 business class tickets from San Diego to Israel and back. This allowed us to fly First Class from San Diego to New York and Business Class from NY to Tel Aviv and then back home to Los Angeles. There was only "economy" class on the flight from Los Angeles to San Diego.

Without question, it is a fabulous treat to fly "premium" on long flights. Our American First Class seats were the most comfortable of the entire trip; superior to El Al's Business Class on both the 747 and new 777. The "neatest" feature was the motorized slide forward and back which was very accommodating to those of us with "girth."

We began our trip by driving to a friend's house who then drove us to the airport and looked after our car for the duration. (Not surprisingly, a High School guy will do almost anything to have a car at his disposal for a few weeks.) He was even awake for our early morning drive!

We had a very substantial amount of luggage with us on our way to Israel. Zachary had made numerous requests of "stuff to bring for me" including a carton of sci-fi books, push-up enhancement devices, electronic goodies, towels, tee shirts, etc. I packed in a very large duffel bag and a capacious carry-on. I was worried a bit about oversize and overweight luggage. In addition I was shlepping another suitcase (donated unknowingly by my Mother) filled with toys and letters and photos from our synagogue and community to donate to the kids in the Shaar Hanegev region of Israel to occupy them in their extensive missile shelter time. Monica packed sensibly, of course, in our large suitcase and a comfy carry-on.

We were challenged to fit all the luggage into our sedan, and uncharacteristicly, I used a red-cap to help bring the luggage to the check-in counter. (Thinking back, the $5.00 I gave him was probably insufficient).

First Class check in on American was smooth and professional and our luggage passed muster. Because of the operating agreement between American and El Al, our luggage was checked through to Tel Aviv. We had been cautioned that this wouldn't actually work (due to El Al security concerns) but it did work. I was carrying a letter (in Hebrew) from our Federation Israel Shaliach about the toys to give to El Al security, it either worked or was unnecessary!

We had time to hang out in the American Airlines Flagship Lounge in San Diego before our flight. It was comfortable, had good coffee, and was well equipped with magazines. We loaded up for the flight. First Class boarding was a breeze; I wish I could fly like this all the time!

The flight to New York was great. Plenty of room in our comfortable chairs, decent in-flight entertainment, not bad breakfast, and attentive service. We arrived at JFK on time and made our way through the maze of the renovated American terminal to the tram to the International terminal. Happily, our luggage took another route and we never saw it in New York!

El Al Business Class check-in was polite but thorough. I turned over the letter from the shaliach and answered all sorts of questions about our trip, purposes, packing, luggage, etc. More thorough than US airline security but one certainly understands El Al's concern for security even though it is a bit intrusive. After checking in we found the King David Lounge and started enjoying the first of what turned out to be over 13 hours of El Al hospitality. But that is the subject of my next post!