Jews on Planes

By Susan Esther Barnes

I’m not one of those people who strikes up conversations with strangers on airplanes. As a general rule, I tend to keep to myself, read a book, write something, or maybe even take a nap. The exception to this rule seems to be when I run into a Jewish person.

It’s one of those peculiarities of the Jewish people that, when we meet, our first reaction seems to be as if we have suddenly found a distant relative. I don’t know if it’s because we’re a minority group, or because we consider all Jews to be a “member of the tribe,” or it’s just a more common phenomenon having to do with finding someone with whom we have something in common, but whatever it is, when I come across another Jewish person on a plane, we end up talking as if we’ve known each other for years.

The first time I noticed this happening was years ago, when I was on a plane, reading a book about Jewish Life Cycles. The woman sitting next to me told me her grandson was going to have his bar mitzvah in a few months, and she wanted to know whether my book had anything to say about the responsibilities of a grandmother during a bar mitzvah ceremony. Sadly, it did not, but that did not stop us from talking about the upcoming ceremony, her family, and any manner of other subjects.

Most recently, this happened on a plane to LA, where I was traveling on business with my boss. He and I were speculating on which country had the most Jews outside of Israel and the United States, when the man on the other side of me gave us his opinion. It turns out he was and American Jew of Persian descent. Before we knew it, we were filled in on his family’s business, what happened when one of his relatives returned to Iran, and which synagogue he didn’t attend regularly.

Of course, it’s not always all smiles and roses. There was that one time on the plane to Israel when one of the black hat Orthodox men refused to take his seat because it was between another woman and me, and he just couldn’t get past the restriction against being in such close proximity to females with which he wasn’t related.

Still, it is noteworthy that, for a person who almost never talks to strangers on planes, my longest and most interesting conversations have turned out to be with other Jews.

Tel Aviv

By Susan Esther Barnes

Written on July 1, the first day of the last leg of our trip to Israel:

Tel Aviv, I hated you from the moment I arrived. Tel Aviv, with your old new airport full of jet planes crouched on the tarmac, waiting to take me away. I rejected you almost sight unseen, for what you have not yet done to me, forgetting altogether it was here I first set foot in Israel so long ago but so recently.

I blame you Tel Aviv, for pushing back, for sneaking into my senses, using your warm sandy beach and your Israeli folk dancing and your cool evening breeze. I wanted to savor my hate for you, Tel Aviv, but you would not allow it. In seemingly no time at all I came to love you, with your bustling shops and confusing, busy streets.

You tricked me, Tel Aviv, as your founders tricked the Turks into accepting your name, not understanding what it represents. I may never forgive you for denying me the feelings I thought were rightly mine. When I return, Tel Aviv, I will be wary of your tricks.

Only on a Plane to Israel

By Susan Esther Barnes

Please accept my apologies for typos. I'm not used to this keyboard yet and I have a very limited amount of time!

This is my first post from Israel, baruch hashem.

I'm on the plane from JFK in New York to Tel Aviv. I have the aisle seat, and in the window seat is a born-again Christian woman named Debbie from Florida who wants to engage me in a running monologue about her cell phone and whatever else springs to mind.

Presently I notice, hovering nearby, a pale young man with a beard, a black hat and tzitzit (fringes worn by Orthodox Jews). I glance at his boarding pass and see he has the seat between Debbie and me. I stand in the aisle and gesture toward the seat, but he looks anxious and simply walks further down the aisle without saying a word. I suspect the trouble is his religious beliefs prevent him from sitting between two women.

I hear another man similarly dressed say to him, "I would help if I could," and eventually the young man wanders back. I gesture toward the seat again, but he says, "I can't sit between..."

Clearly, at this point I have a choice to make. I booked the flight months ago and I want the aisle seat, where there is more room and I have easy access to the restroom. I believe in respecting, and making reasonable accomodations for, the religious beliefs of others. The phrase "Don't put a stumbling block before the blind" pops into my head, and I realize I just don't want to enable this behaviour. Maybe if he sits between two women for one flight he will realize it isn't a disaster.

The flight attendants announce a few times that the flight is full and everyone needs to sit down so we can leave the gate. Eventually, the doors are closed and the flight attendant tells the guy to sit in his seat. He refuses. The flight attendant insists, and instead the guy walks toward the back of the plane again.

Shortly, up walks a frum (Jewishly observant) woman named Dinah, who says she traded seats with the anxious young man. At first I feel a bit guilty, but as Debbie regales Dinah with tales of how she heals herself and others with the "Word of God," I am glad I was selfish and kept my assigned seat. Dinah, God love her, is a kind and patient woman who treats Debbie much more kindly than I think I would have been able to if I were sitting next to her.

I smile, because it all means without a doubt I'm on my way to Israel.

Why I'm Not Excited To Be Going To Israel

By Susan Esther Barnes

A week from Monday, about a week and a half from now, I’m scheduled to board a plane for my first visit to Israel. A lot of people know about it, because it’s a synagogue trip, so it’s been in the synagogue’s weekly emails and the rabbi who’s leading the excursion keeps mentioning it.

People keep asking me, “Are you excited?” clearly expecting me to say, “Yes!” but the honest answer is, “No, I’m not. At all.” It’s hard for me to say this, though, because people want to know what I mean by that. They want to know what’s wrong.

Is it because I’m afraid of terrorism? Is it that I don’t like airplanes or long trips? Does it have something to do with the flotilla, or Gaza, or the Middle East conflict in general? No, it is none of those things. The simple answer is, it’s because I spend most of my life living in the present.

Some people spend much of their time dwelling over events in the past, reliving moments gone by, trying to figure out how they could have done things better. Although I do try to learn from my mistakes (as well as from my successes), I don’t spend much time thinking about what has already happened.

When something that happens particularly strikes me, I will think about it, sometimes maybe even obsess about it, as I pick the words I’m going to use to write it down. But once I’ve gotten it onto paper, especially once I’ve posted it on my blog, I usually let it go and don’t think about it much any more.

Similarly, some people spend much of their time thinking about the future. These people are great planners. If they were going on a trip to Israel they might read books about where they’re going, maybe watch some Israeli movies, or look at maps or other information online.

For people who like to spend time in the future, planning for the trip and anticipating what it might be like in advance is half the fun. I am not one of these people. I’d rather just show up and see what happens when I get there. I’d be perfectly happy not even seeing an itinerary in advance. This is especially easy to do when going with a tour group like the one the synagogue arranged.

Of course, this tendency not to plan for the future has its drawbacks. Sometimes I walk into a meeting and suddenly think, “Oops, I should have brought such-and-such with me.” It also means when someone asks me in a job interview, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” my honest answer of, “I have no idea; I’d like to see how things unfold,” generally is not what they’re hoping to hear.

Yes, I am a creature of the present. This state of being has some definite advantages. I believe one of the reasons I’m good at helping out at the synagogue is I spend most of my time paying attention to what is happening in the moment. Therefore, I’m more likely than some others to notice if a congregant needs a prayer book or a tissue, or the rabbi needs a cup of water, or a visitor is searching for the restroom; so I’m in a position to help get them what they require.

It can also lead to some degree of frustration. When I was studying for my Master’s degree I was in a cohort of people who preferred to spend most of their time in the future. For instance, if the professor mentioned a paper that would be due at the end of the semester, they would ask endless questions about what should be in the paper, how it should be formatted, how long it should be, etc. The whole time I would sit there thinking, “That paper isn’t due for a long time yet. I’m not concerned about that right now. Can we just get on with the class at hand?”

It can also lead to confusion. I’m supposed to be going to Israel in a week and a half, for the first time. I very much want to go. So how can I not be excited? People react as if there’s something wrong with me.

So here it is, all you future folk: I’m not excited because it’s still a week and a half out. I have a lot of things in the present to take up my time and to get excited about between then and now, including two Shabbats, which are almost always the highlight of my week.

If you want to see me being excited about Israel, talk to me when I’m on the plane, or as I step onto the soil of the holy land. I can assure you, when the time comes, I’ll be bouncing off the walls. But right now I’m not excited about the trip. At all. And that’s okay, because all it means is I’m being me.