Back safe in Israel by Shabbat

SHANA ROSENBLATT MAUER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN

Instead of spending the morning of Friday, Nov. 29, shopping, cooking and cleaning, Rachel, a friend of mine from Efrat, made phone calls, checking room availability in a string of hotels in the vicinity of Ben-Gurion Airport. The day before, her daughter and in-laws had been part of the Israeli group that suffered the terrorist attack on the Paradise hotel in Mombassa, Kenya. Although the attack took place on a Thursday, it had taken time for the Israeli rescue crew to arrive in Africa, tend to the wounded and ready the planes for their return trip. Rachel had spoken to a representative of the Foreign Ministry several times, who patiently explained that because of the time difference and rescue effort, the planes would only be landing on Friday at a yet to be confirmed hour. Despite her shock over the whole incident, Rachel remained focused and continued to search for a hotel close to the airport so that she and her family could greet her daughter and in-laws and reach the hotel before the onset of Shabbat.

But, what Rachel did not know as she struggled to remain rational following her daughter's survival of a terrorist attack that killed three Israelis and nine Kenyans, was that it had taken three hours for local emergency personnel to arrive at the Paradise hotel, which seemed somewhat inexplicable considering that Mombassa, a major city, was only an hour drive away. She also did not know that survivors of the attack ended up sitting on the hotel's beachfront for five hours without proper drinking water or shelter before some sort of refuge was found for them. She was also unaware of the experience of one Israeli couple who, unharmed, immediately fled after the attack and went straight back to the airport only to be rejected by every airline with imminent flights scheduled out of Mombassa. Nor did she know that when the group was finally transferred to another nearby hotel, the group did not immediately receive water or aid, and was told by the manager that they should be grateful he even agreed to take them, a decision that put him in grave danger.

Thus, it is not hard to imagine the outpouring of relief and gratitude expressed by these unsuspecting tourists when rescue teams dispatched by Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz arrived to tend to the victims and shuttle the group back to Israel. Adults and children who had flown to Kenya to spend their Chanukah vacation far from the ever-present threat of terror - many of them, like Rachel's daughter and in-laws, on bar and bat mitzvah celebration trips - were elated to see their countrymen and even happier they had come to take them home.

Visitors no longer flock to Israel. Most hotels are lifeless hulks. Restaurants and cafés are half empty. Inert, dusty tour buses huddle in forlorn parking lots. Unemployment is 12 per cent and inflation totalled 6.5 per cent last year. Israel is often the object of international scorn and, on many occasions, world Jewry has vocally expressed frustration with Israel's role in the ongoing war that has yet to be named as such. The situation is indeed disheartening. However, as I read the news in the days following the attack, I took tremendous comfort knowing that despite all of the bleakness, this country still has leaders who do not hesitate when Jewish people are in need of rescue, and the resources to carry out such operations with the swift efficiency that was once the pride of Jews the world over.

Amid the chaotic effort to make weekend contingency plans, Rachel received a call from her contact at the Foreign Ministry. In a reassuring and sympathetic voice, the woman on the other end of the line told Rachel not to worry. All of the Israelis who were concerned about arriving in Israel close to the start of Shabbat were given the option of travelling on the first plane out of Kenya, which would be arriving at Ben-Gurion several hours before sundown. While trying to co-ordinate emergency protocol with a far-off developing nation, contacting family members of attack victims, administering emergency care, equipping a small fleet of planes for a return journey, and contending with a concurrent attack that had been unsuccessfully executed that same day against the Israeli passenger plane that had actually delivered the Israeli group to Mombassa on that fateful Thursday, Israel's various governmental departments were also scrambling to make sure that the observant Israelis in the group would not be stranded at the airport or separated from their families over Shabbat.

There was truly no need for concern the woman reiterated. The first plane would arrive well before candlelighting and all of the passengers would definitely have enough time to get home for Shabbat. And, so they did.

Shana Rosenblatt Mauer, originally from Vancouver, is a writer living in Efrat, Israel. She works as a PR professional and grant writer for the Shalom Hartman Institute.

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