This is the second in a series this week of Minnesotans and their journeys home from Israel last month after Operation Rising Lion. Check out Part 1.
For the dozens of Minnesotans who were stuck in Israel in the wake of the 12-day war with Iran, there were limited options for those who wanted – or needed – to come home before Israeli airspace opened: boat to Cyprus, or travel to Jordan or Egypt.
For Michelle Shamash and her mother Linda Perry, and Colin and Wendy Smith and their daughter Leah, among others, went through Amman, Jordan. Their departure airport was the same, but their journeys to get there were different.
Shamash and her mom had gone to Israel to see her son, who had made aliyah last year, as well as to volunteer.
“It was going to be another Israel experience,” Shamash said. “Getting home was really stressful.”
Shamash and Perry had planned on a two-week trip, the first to visit her son, the second to volunteer with Terri’s Angels. They had planned on visiting Kibbutz Alonim, where Shamash had lived when she visited Israel when she was younger. But because of the constant rocket fire, they were told to abandon that plan.
Shamash and Perry had ended up in southern Israel at Kibbutz Ketura where the alerts and sirens were significantly less than in northern or central Israel. There she ran into many Taglit-Birthright program young adult, where the duo said they acted as surrogate mom and bubbie.
“It was an amazing place,” Shamash said. “They took us in as if we were their own.”
Unfortunately, her father’s health took a turn, which meant leaving Israel as soon as possible.
“We were on three different lists: One was from the Israeli consulate, one from, El Al, and one from the American Embassy,” Shamash said, adding that the Minneapolis Jewish Federation and Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas also knew of their plight and the necessity of leaving as soon as possible.
“The Birthright kids were getting on the ships to Cyprus, but my mom’s 82; there was no way we were going to do that,” Shamash said.
There was a brief moment when they thought they were going to be able to fly out of Israel on June 24, but they learned the airspace would stay closed on June 22 before they made the trek north. With the options limited, they figured out their journey to Amman.
“We paid for an outrageously expensive one-way ticket from Amman, and then we had to figure out how to get there,” Shamash said. “So that’s where it got interesting. We had all these people recommending people. That was the key to this situation: getting safe passage through Jordan.”
The networking paid off. Someone who knew someone, who knew someone recommended a travel agent in Eilat, who knew someone who referred them to Mohammad, a driver who eased them across the border to Jordan, and drove them to the capital city.
“The border in Eilat was relatively simple,” Shamash said. “Most of the people were waiting in these crazy long lines in the northern part of Israel.”
The pair said that Mohammad was “the nicest, most wonderful man.”
“He was a tour guide,” Shamash said. “He told us what we were looking at in terms of the geology and archeology. He knew I liked camels so he pulled over so I could take pictures of them. That drive was amazing.”
Once in Amman, they were among a group of Americans who had to get their exit visas sorted out. But once they did they were on their way.
“You could tell who the shell-shocked Jews were,” she said. “You could pick us out of a lineup.”
The flight was to Chicago, where they stayed overnight with friends before renting a car and driving home to finish the journey.
“We met so many people, and what really made me feel better is [that] I got to see what my son’s life is like right now,” Shamash said. “If I had been here in the States while this was going on, I would have gone absolutely insane worrying about him. And while I was there with him. I knew where we were, [we’d be] relatively safe compared to the other parts of the country. Now, if he’s on Ketura, I know he’ll be okay.”
Crossing at Allenby
The timing of the Smith family’s departure from Israel and crossing into Jordan carried a different set of worries: It was the day after the U.S. entered the fray by bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities.
“I was saying to Colin ‘Maybe we shouldn’t go?’” Wendy Smith recalled telling her husband. “Maybe this wasn’t a good day to do it.”
Colin and Wendy Smith, their daughter Leah, nephew Gabriel, and another woman they met at the Israel Economic Forum they attended, were picked up in Jerusalem and driven to the Allenby Crossing over the Jordan River.
“There were sirens twice on the way to the crossing,” Wendy Smith said. T“he first siren we pulled over, and there was literally no place to go. We pulled over, got out, and the security guard was looking for a place for us to hang out under something safe. We prayed that nothing was going to hit Jerusalem. That was really scary.”
The second siren, they were in one of the tunnels on the roadway between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, the direction they had to travel in order to get to the border.
Once at the border – much like Shamash and Perry – there was a random series of meetings that seems to happen in Israel.
The Smith’s party was handed off to someone named Asher, who knew Shmulik, a former Shin-Bet commander who was on the Israeli side of the border. Shmulik happened to grow up in the same town as the woman in charge of the Allenby Crossing. Once they crossed the border, they met Ahmed, their Jordanian contact, who shepherded the quintet to the hotel in Amman.
But being Jewish in Jordan was a concern to the Smiths.
“Colin was panicked about his Tifillin, because he hasn’t missed a day since 2010 and everyone told us these horror stories,” of Judaica being confiscated,” she said. “It’s scary, and we were still doing it anyway.”
The visible Judaica had the Smiths concerned about something they were bringing home: Israeli candy that will be part of their son’s wedding celebration in August.
“We got all this gummy candy at the shuk that all had Hebrew writing on it,” she said. Before they left Israel, Leah unwrapped all the candy and put it in Ziploc bags. ”We were so afraid to, like, bring anything that had Hebrew writing or Hebrew symbols, because everybody warned us, like it could be a problem. That was the main thing we were carrying was smuggling gummy candy for our son’s wedding.”
The hardest part of the journey, Smith said, was having to hide their identity.
“I was even worried to bring it [my Star of David necklace],” she said. “I put it in my toiletry bag, hid it in my shower cap.”
Despite the headaches getting home and the fear they faced while in Israel, they still miss being there.
“Our hearts are still there,” she said. “We wanted to extend our trip, but this isn’t the way we wanted to extend. It’s hard to come home.”
