In 1968 when Rose worked in the sales office of Northwest Orient Airlines in Chicago, El Al Airlines offered an inexpensive trip to employees of other airlines to Israel to encourage referrals to El Al. This kind of trip was commonly offered by various airlines in those days. The trip was only about a week. We started by flying to New York to join the group of Americans at La Guardia in the middle of the night. We then flew on El Al to Rome, arriving during the day, to pick up a German group and an Italian group. From there we flew to Lod Airport in Israel, arriving in the night. Then we rode in a bus to an Arab hotel in East Jerusalem, arriving around midnight. Apparently that hotel was chosen to encourage business for the Arab community there. Dinner was served on our arrival. We were exhausted by that time, but we had to sit down to dinner because it had been prepared. The waiters were attentive but sullen (this was one year after the Six Day War which resulted in the transfer of East Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan to Israel). After dinner, we went to our room which was somewhat drab but comfortable enough. It was during some Moslem holy period, and during the night one could hear calls to prayer in Arabic over a loud-speaker from somewhere outside. The next morning, we were taken in the tour bus to see the sights on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. During the tour, we heard a bang from off in the distance. We asked the tour guide what that was. He said he did not know, but later we heard on the bus radio that there had been a terrorist bombing in the Mahane Yehuda (a Jewish market in Jerusalem). The day tour then ended, and we returned to the hotel. During supper that evening, we could hear jeeps driving around. One of the Italian ladies came screaming into the dining room. She had stepped outside and witnessed some shooting. The waiters then started closing the drapes that covered the windows. After supper, we returned to our rooms for the rest of the night.
The next morning, we got up and had breakfast in the dining room. The plan had originally been to see more sights in Jerusalem, but the rest of the Jerusalem tour was canceled. We had hoped to visit relatives in Jerusalem. We later did meet them on another trip. The bus took us across the West Bank to our next destination at a kibbutz in the Galilee. The German group consisted of mostly young ladies who sat together in the middle of the bus. They were quiet and maybe intimidated. It was only thirteen years after the end of the Holocaust. The Italians sat in the back of the bus and sang Italian songs. We stopped for a while at an Arab town half way across the West Bank. Our tour guide said it was for “coffee in and coffee out.” The Italian group bought a bunch of noodles at a shop there. Their intention was to make spaghetti for dinner that evening at the kibbutz in the Galilee. They ran into a problem with their spaghetti dinner. The kibbutz was kosher, but after much discussion, it was decided that the noodles were OK, but the spaghetti had to be cooked by the kibbutz cooks.
After dinner, Rose asked the guide (I don’t remember his name) if there was anywhere nearby for dancing. He said there was a small dance hall nearby called the Blue Beat, and if Ari (the bus driver) would like to drive us, we could go there. Ari agreed, so off we went. The Blue Beat was a small dance floor lit up by blue neon lights located on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The blue lights were reflected by the rippling water along the shore. The music was from phonograph records. The effect was beautiful. We sat on chairs lined up along the dance floor, taking in the beauty of the sound and the scene. A group of Israeli young soldiers entered (mostly men but some women) and also sat in the chairs. After a short time the young men started asking the German girls to dance. One of the German girls disappeared apparently with one of the Israeli soldiers only to reappear at Lod airport to meet the group before our plane left at the end of the tour. After that evening, the German girls seemed more relaxed for the rest of the trip.
The next few days, we made a number of stops in Northern Israel. One stop was at a Christian church in some small town. The minister gave us a talk about the church. I don’t remember what he said, but during his talk a group of young people came in and sat down in the back row. I assume they were kibbutzniks because they had the look of farmers. They had the same look as farmers in Illinois or Iowa, not just the ruddiness of their skin, but a look on their faces that I can’t describe. What bothered me was that they laughed and seemed disrespectful. The minister appeared irritated. It made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I was embarrassed by the disrespect shown by my fellow Jews.
The last stop on our tour was Tel Aviv where we met our cousins there. One of them, Chaim, had been my pen-pal for some time, and now I was able to meet him in person. Chaim’s older brother, whose name I don’t remember, was there with his wife, Herzlia. Herzlia was Yemenite Jewish and looked rather exotic. Chaim, his brother, and Herzlia knew English, so we were able to communicate. I was able to communicate with Chaim’s parents in my limited Yiddish. My Hebrew School Hebrew just didn’t work in conversation. Chaim, Rose, and I took a walk down the street in central Tel Aviv. Interestingly, I ran into an Argentine Jew whom I knew from the United States. Chaim thought it was odd that during the walk in his city he didn’t meet anyone he knew, but I did.
The next day, we went on the tour bus to Lod Airport, then to Rome to let off the Germans and Italians, then on to the USA.