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Ben Gurion airport shutdowns leave already disrupted passengers desperate
Disruptions to air travel have become the new normal in post-October 7 Israel, locked in military conflict on multiple fronts. But the current war with Iran has brought the battle for commercial airspace to new heights, with prolonged service cancellations leaving would-be passengers stranded — and with a growing sense that they’ve been left to figure things out on their own.
The decision to launch pre-emptive strikes just before Passover has left people hoped to fly to join family — in Israel or elsewhere — with dashed hopes for the holiday. They include thousands of gap-year students — many studying in Orthodox yeshivot and seminaries — who were planning to fly home and have been left with unusable tickets.
As Israel has battled Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran since October 2023, foreign carriers have repeatedly suspended and resumed service as security conditions shifted, leaving travelers with limited options and soaring ticket prices.
Israel’s flagship airline, El Al, has been among the only carriers to continue flying consistently, earning praise for getting reserve soldiers home while also facing criticism, including accusations of price gouging and a class-action lawsuit alleging it took advantage of limited competition.
Now Ben Gurion is allowing only extremely limited passenger travel. Meanwhile, just days into what the U.S. Embassy had announced as a “historic partnership” with El Al to operate nonstop flights to the United States for Americans, priced at $900 for economy and $2,000 for premium seats, those have also come to a sudden halt.
As of March 19, El Al said it was suspending repatriation flights “for the foreseeable future,” after shrapnel hit private planes, and the State Department said it “does not anticipate arranging additional charter flights from Israel.”
As flights were canceled and rebooked, then canceled again, official information became as valuable as a plane seat itself — and just as rare. Travelers began sharing updates — airline messages, rumors of available flights and alternate routes — across text chains and social media. One Facebook group, DansDeals, has more than 50,000 members posting questions, advice and urgent pleas for help.
Daniel Eleff, who founded the group more than 20 years ago as an offshoot of his travel deals website, said that after October 7 it took on a new role, tracking flights and sharing strategies that became a lifeline each time the airspace closed. What began as a forum for bargain-hunting has evolved into a crowdsourced information hub — and, at times, a place to vent frustration and grapple with what it means to encounter a war up close that many had previously followed from afar.
According to Eleff, the unique conditions of this war help explain the challenges. “The U.S. Air Force has based some of their planes out of Ben Gurion,” he said. “We’ve never had a situation like this — running both military and commercial operations out of the same airport in the middle of a war.”
That dynamic, along with limits on flights and passenger numbers amid ongoing missile fire, sharply reduced available seats. With protocols constantly changing, airlines were forced to reshuffle manifests and cancel seats, sometimes at the last minute.
“They would open up more seats, rebook everyone, and then suddenly have to cut it back,” Eleff said. “It created complete chaos.”
The State Department’s response also shifted repeatedly — from purchasing blocks of seats, to briefly organizing free charters, to directing citizens to book independently — adding to the confusion.
As options out of Tel Aviv dwindled, some began looking elsewhere — across the border into Jordan and Egypt. But for many, especially students traveling alone, it felt risky. In online forums, unverified reports of mistreatment at border crossings circulated widely, adding to the uncertainty.
Into that vacuum stepped Grey Bull Rescue, a U.S.-based nonprofit founded by military veteran Bryan Stern, which evacuates Americans from high-risk environments. Within days, the group began organizing overland routes through Jordan, transporting passengers by bus and flying them onward to Europe.
But operating outside official channels comes with risks — and scrutiny. Stern said he was prepared for the former; the latter caught him off guard.
In a widely circulated video, one American parent whose daughter was on a Grey Bull evacuation accused the organization of mismanagement and of “extorting” money from families. The video quickly gained traction, though many — including some on the same trip — pushed back, describing the journey as arduous but worth it and criticizing her as ungrateful.
In a conversation with The Forward, Stern rejected the allegations, attributing delays to missile fire, airspace restrictions and accommodations for religious passengers who could not travel on Shabbat. He also denied participation was ever contingent on payment, though he acknowledged encouraging evacuees to support fundraising.
“Airplanes don’t fly themselves. Buses don’t drive themselves. Someone has to pay for it,” Stern said. “We don’t charge people — but we do ask for help.”
“We’ve had a demonstrable decrease in donations for this operation,” he added, saying the shortfall — compounded by the viral video — has left the organization scrambling to secure funding for future flights.
Departure from a war zone
If the logistics of leaving Israel were complicated, the emotions even more so.
Amid the constant stream of updates, a fierce debate took hold over whether Americans were truly “stuck” — and whether they had the right to complain at all.
For some, the chaos and stress gave way to something unexpectedly meaningful. Raquefette Chertok of New York and Paul Bardack of Maryland were both visiting family when they found themselves sheltering from missile fire while scrambling to get home.
Their journeys followed a familiar pattern: repeated cancellations, scarce information and last-minute rerouting. Eventually, they made it home — Chertok, her husband and three young children via Prague and London, and Bardack and his wife via Athens, Reykjavik and Stockholm.
“We weren’t exactly stuck,” Chertok said, describing the experience as something closer to a rite of passage than a crisis. “It certainly made me feel more connected to this place.”
“I’m also aware that I am very spoiled,” she continued. “I’m talking to you right now from the comfort of my home in Long Island where there are no missiles flying overhead. My heart breaks that my cousins are still dealing with this.”
Bardack and his wife also chose to come despite the risks, wanting to be with their children and grandson if war broke out.
What stayed with him most was how quickly life could shift. “One moment we’re playing chess with our grandson; the next, we’re rushing into the safe room,” he said.
That reality crystallized when he overheard the seven year old asking calmly, “Mommy, is this the day I’m going to die?”
“His tone was so matter-of-fact,” Bardack recalled.
At the same time, he was struck by what he described as the resilience of Israelis — the way, once the all-clear sounded, life resumed almost immediately.
“These are things you read about, you see videos,” he said. “But until you live it, you don’t really get it.”
After a 42 hour journey home, the entire experience has left Bardack with complex feelings about the war, somewhere between full-throated Israeli support and outright American opposition. “I think we are still processing all of this…but right now, we plan to just get some sleep.”
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Rep. Jared Moskowitz becomes latest Jewish lawmaker to reveal antisemitic threats
(JTA) — The messages that Rep. Jared Moskowitz said he received at his office were filled with obscenities, calls to “kill Jews” and warnings that the Florida Democrat would be “going down.”
Moskowitz played the voicemails during an interview with CNN’s Sara Sidner on Friday as he described a sharp rise in antisemitic hostility against Jewish lawmakers since Oct. 7, a trend he said reflected a broader normalization of antisemitic rhetoric in American public life.
“We seem, Sara, to have passed a Rubicon now with these antisemitic threats,” Moskowitz said. “It used to be once in a while you’d see a swastika on a building, once in a while, you know, someone would say something online. Now it’s every day, all the time, on podcasts, online, in the media, in the halls of Congress, and they’re trying to get Jews.”
CNN played multiple messages that illustrated Moskowitz’s point, with Sidner warning viewers that what they would hear was “deeply disturbing.”
Moskowitz, who is Jewish, said the spate of threats had caused him to need a police officer stationed outside his home 24 hours a day, since a man was sentenced to prison for plotting to kill him in November 2024.
“The U.S. government needs to kill Jews, you kill these f–cking nasty Jews, kill every single f-cking Zionist scumbag,” a caller said in one of the voicemails. “Zionism is treason to ‘we the people’ in our U.S. Constitution. Kill Israel.”
Another caller left this message: “Hey you Zionist Jew f-cking pig. How about no more money for Israel? Funding Israel, stealing more of our money for Israel. F-ck Israel, let them f-cking burn to the ground. You’re going down too, sir.”
Moskowitz is far from the only Jewish lawmaker to report a rapidly increasing number of antisemitic threats and harassment in recent weeks. The shift comes as both parties grapple with internal tensions about how to handle antisemitism within their ranks, and as anger about Israel and the Iran war funnels more attention to U.S. Jews. It also comes amid rising political violence in the United States.
“It’s no longer a Republican and a Democrat [issue],” Rep. Max Miller, a Jewish Ohio Republican, told Axios this week. “Both ends of our parties are wackadoos who hate Jews.”
Miller received a message warning that “antisemitism is on the rise because you guys think you own the f-cking world,” according to Axios, which said the caller added, “You guys are going to be shot dead every f-cking day.”
Among the messages highlighted by a recent Axios report on the phenomenon was a letter sent to New York Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler, in which one constituent wrote that “Hitler was spot-on, 100% right about the filth that you Jew-bastards, you kikes are.” In a voicemail left for Ohio Democratic Rep. Greg Landsman’s office, one caller said, “I don’t like Jewish people, and the congressman should just go die.”
The lawmakers say the phenomenon is new. “Across the board, we have never seen anything like this in my lifetime in public office,” Jewish California Rep. Brad Sherman told the New York Times last month. “It’s like you turned the volume up from two to 10.”
The volley of antisemitic threats has also spilled into the real world, with Miller reporting last year that a man had attempted to run him off the road while calling him a “dirty Jew.” Last year, a man set fire to the residence of Jewish Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro hours after his family hosted a Passover seder there.
“We need good people to not be quiet,” Moskowitz said when Sidner asked him what message should be sent in response to the rise in antisemitic rhetoric targeting lawmakers.
“There are people out there, they may disagree with U.S. policy, they may not like the leader of a country, but they shouldn’t be allowing antisemites into their movement,” Moskowitz said. “They should not be embracing this sort of behavior, because they’re trying to win some sort of political point. It should be obvious.”
Moskowitz’s comments echoed a growing debate over the normalization of antisemitic rhetoric within American politics on both the left and the right, with Jewish lawmakers and watchdog groups warning that language once relegated to the fringes has increasingly become mainstream.
Last week, Texas U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he would not campaign with Maureen Galindo, a Democratic congressional candidate in Texas who says she wants to open a “prison for American Zionists” among other incendiary remarks. Talarico said in a statement that “antisemitic rhetoric has no place in our politics.”
On Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul’s son William apologized after he made repeated antisemitic comments directed at New York Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, who is not Jewish, including calling Jews “anti-American.”
Moskowitz told CNN that, while people may criticize the Israeli government and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the voicemails left at his office illustrated “how quickly, you know, they go from Zionism to Jews, Israel to Jews.”
“Listen, if you don’t like Netanyahu, great, go out and criticize him all day long,” Moskowitz said. “But don’t let people into your tent that you know are threatening to kill my family or my kids.”
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Jewish groups denounce fatal shooting at San Diego mosque, say it proves need for security funding
(JTA) — Jewish groups are denouncing a fatal shooting at a mosque in San Diego in which three people, including a security guard, were killed. They are also saying the incident, which follows attacks on synagogues, underscores a need for more federal funding for security at houses of worship.
Police in San Diego said they are investigating the attack on the Islamic Center of San Diego as a hate crime. San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said two teenagers, ages 17 and 19, who appeared to have carried out the attack were found dead of self-inflicted gunshot wounds in a car nearby.
“We are heartbroken by today’s attack on the Islamic Center of San Diego. Islamophobia has no place in California or anywhere in this country,” Jesse Gabriel, chair of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, said in a statement. He added, “We are committed to working with our colleagues to strengthen protections for houses of worship and combat hate-motivated violence.”
The attack, which occurred at about 12:30 p.m. local time, sent five area schools into lockdown, including a Hebrew charter school.
“We’re safe and we’re following the direction of the police,” a representative for Kavod Hebrew Charter School told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency by phone on Monday afternoon. Kavod is a non-religious bilingual K-8 school that employs a number of Jewish and Israeli educators.
A synagogue that houses a school in an adjacent neighborhood also said it was briefly locked down in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.
The mosque attack comes two months after a man rammed an explosives-laden truck into one of the largest synagogues in the United States, Temple Israel in Michigan. There, the synagogue’s robust security training was credited with halting the attack. Children were inside the adjacent preschool at the time.
“The images coming from San Diego are all too familiar to us,” Temple Israel said in a message to its community that it posted to social media. It said that one of its rabbis, Jen Lader, was in Washington, D.C., to lobby for $1 billion in federal security funding for houses of worship.
Jewish Federations of North America said it had more than 400 local Jewish leaders in Washington to lobby for the security funding, which it said was necessary to protect religious communities from threats that are “real, urgent, and growing.” The $1 billion ask is a centerpiece of JFNA’s response to growing security concerns and would represent more than a doubling of federal spending on security needs for houses of worship.
“To anyone who feels this is excessive, what happened to Temple Israel two months ago, and now, the Islamic Center of San Diego, proves that it is not optional funding,” Temple Israel said. “Every dollar will be necessary to protect houses of worship all over the country.”
Imam Taha Hassane of the Islamic Center of San Diego, which includes a mosque and the adjacent Al Rashid School, said teachers, students and school staff were safe.
“At this moment, all that I can say is sending our prayers and standing in solidarity with all the families in our community here, and also the other mosques and all the places of worship in our beautiful city,” Hassane said during a press conference Monday afternoon. “They should always be protected. It is extremely outrageous to target a place of worship. Our Islamic Center is a place of worship. People come to the Islamic Center to pray, to celebrate, to learn.”
Law enforcement across the country are tightening security measures in response to the attack in San Diego.
“While there is currently no known nexus to NYC or specific threats to NYC houses of worship, out of an abundance of caution, the NYPD is increasing deployments to mosques across the city,” the New York Police Department said in a statement.
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Mamdani’s first Jewish Heritage event reveals a narrowed circle
The Jewish American Heritage Month reception at Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s official residence on the Upper East Side, on Monday evening felt unlike any before it. It was not simply because the host, Zohran Mamdani, is New York City’s first Muslim mayor or because the Shavuot-themed menu was dairy. It was that the annual gathering came amid one of the most strained relationships between a mayor and much of New York’s Jewish establishment in recent memory.
Even the setting reflected the changed atmosphere. Previous receptions under former mayors had spilled into a large tent in the mansion’s garden overlooking the East River, with buffet tables lined with kosher food, bars stocked with liquor and wine, live music and packed crowds of rabbis, communal leaders, elected officials and supporters mingling late into the evening. The longstanding traditional events became demonstrations of the close alliance with mainstream Jewish organizations and pro-Israel activists, who formed a key part of their political base.
This year’s gathering was different. The event was moved indoors to Gracie Mansion’s smaller blue reception room. The crowd of 150 people was served by waiters quietly circulating through the room with small dairy dishes in honor of Shavuot: miniature cheesecakes, halved cheese blintzes, cheese bourekas served with a touch of charif on the side, potato knishes, chocolate mousse, salad cups and cheese-ball skewers. The drink selection was limited to Herzog wine from California and water.
There was no music at all — not even a cappella — despite the easing of traditional restrictions during the final days of the Omer before Shavuot.
Mamdani’s Jewish commissioners, deputy mayors and aides circulated through the room, greeting attendees. But absent were prominent Jewish figures in city government and politics, including Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, Comptroller Mark Levine, Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal and most of the local elected officials. The only Jewish elected officials in attendance were Councilmembers Harvey Epstein and Lincoln Restler, and former comptroller and now congressional candidate Brad Lander.
The crowd itself reflected the Jewish coalition emerging around Mamdani’s mayoralty: anti-Zionist activists aligned with groups such as Jews For Racial & Economic Justice and Jewish Voice for Peace; liberal Jewish leaders affiliated with New York Jewish Agenda, who have sharply criticized Mamdani on Israel and antisemitism issues while continuing to engage with the administration, and those aligned with pro-peace organizations; and Hasidic leaders from the Satmar community in Williamsburg, who religiously oppose Zionism and have long shaped their relationship with municipal government around local priorities such as housing, education and nonprofit funding.
Mamdani was introduced by Phylisa Wisdom, executive director of the Office to Combat Antisemitism, who also serves as the unofficial director for Jewish affairs. Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, delivered the invocation, and Jake Levin, manager of the Mayor’s Office of Mass Engagement, served as emcee.
The mayor offered some greetings, describing the preparations for Shavuot across the city, the teaching of Jewish values and his administration’s effort to combat rising antisemitism. “Jewish New Yorkers have worked to cultivate a city that is safe and open to all,” Mamdani said. “You should be accorded the same security and the same peace of mind.”
He then honored Ruth Messinger, the trailblazing Jewish political leader who in 1997 became the first and only woman to win the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor and went on to lead American Jewish World Service. Messinger backed Mamdani in the mayoral race last year. Guests were then privately ushered in to take photos with Mamdani.
Mamdani’s coalition
The reception came just days after Mamdani reignited tensions with many Jewish communities by posting a Nakba Day video produced by his City Hall media team commemorating the displacement of Palestinians during Israel’s founding in 1948. That was followed by what was perceived as a delayed and balanced response to pro-Palestinian protesters descending on a heavily Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood where a synagogue hosted a real estate sale that included West Bank properties.
The Nakba video angered many Jewish New Yorkers who already viewed Mamdani’s sharp criticism of Israel and embrace of Palestinian activism as dismissive of Jewish fears over rising antisemitism. Despite the backlash, there was little indication that Mamdani intends to moderate the political identity that brought him to power. Mamdani defended the video Monday morning when pressed about the civic purpose of using official city resources to mark Nakba Day, saying that acknowledging Palestinian suffering does not negate Jewish suffering or Israel’s history. He also declared that his “door is always open” to Jewish leaders despite the backlash.
But on Monday, a notable array of prominent Jewish leaders did not walk in — or were not invited.
Among those absent were leaders of the Jewish Community Relations Council, the Conference of Presidents, UJA Federation of New York, Board of Rabbis, Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, the Reform movement, Met Council, Orthodox Union, Agudath Israel of America and Chabad-Lubavitch. Devorah Halberstam and Yaacov Behrman, leaders affiliated with Lubavitch in Crown Heights who recently appeared with Mamdani, did attend.
Some Jewish communal leaders absent from the Gracie Mansion reception have embraced a strategy of total opposition to Mamdani, viewing engagement with him as legitimizing a mayor they see as hostile to Zionism. Other organizations that are dependent on city grants or ongoing access to the municipal government have continued engaging with City Hall even while publicly criticizing the mayor’s rhetoric on Israel and antisemitism.
But that has become increasingly harder for them. The UJA Federation of New York, which hosted Mamdani for a mayoral candidate forum last year, said its leadership did not attend because it was “being hosted by a mayor who denies a core pillar of our heritage — the State of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.”
Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis, who was among 19 Jewish leaders on Mamdani’s transition team, told the New York Post he declined an invitation to join.
The reception suggested that Mamdani is continuing to cultivate a smaller alternative Jewish coalition, separate from the traditional pro-Israel communal establishment and rooted more in progressive activism and pragmatic community relationships. Mamdani recently appointed Rabbi Miriam Grossman, a JVP activist, as his faith liaison. To his critics, however, the evening underscored how narrow that coalition remains within the broader Jewish community of New York City.
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