Rabbi Randi Musnitsky of Temple Har Shalom in Warren and her husband, Rabbi Ronald Kaplan of Temple Beth Am in Parsippany, combined groups from their respective congregations on a Dec. 22-Jan. 3 trip to Israel.
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January 22, 2009
Rabbi Randi Musnitsky knows how Israel can shake the heart of those visiting it for the first time. What she didn’t expect was to have her group of 39 congregants witness the country at its most heartrending — facing a war.
The leader of Temple Har Shalom, a Reform congregation in Warren, went to Israel this past Hanukka with her husband, Rabbi Ronald Kaplan, who is the religious leader of Temple Beth Am in Parsippany. They brought with them their 20-year-old son and a combined group of members from their respective congregations, aged between 10 and 70-plus. They were there from Dec. 22 to Jan. 3.
The trip, Musnitsky said, “was intended to introduce first-timers to the country, or to re-energize old-timers who hadn’t been there in a long time.”
Reviewing the experience soon after her return, she said, “It was absolutely wonderful.” Not that she would have chosen to have violence explode during their visit, but, she said, it showed the group that very special phenomenon — Israelis’ maintaining normality in a crisis, and the feeling of safety in the country, while from afar all hell seems to be breaking loose. The travelers also got extra warm treatment from Israelis, just for being there, she said.
For the first few days, they did what all such groups do. “It was an educational introduction to Israel rather than just a tourist trip,” she said. “We wanted them to meet the people, feel the land, and understand its history. We covered the entire country, from the Golan Heights to Eilat, and even went to Petra in Jordan for a few hours.”
And then the military action began — they all remembered exactly when because they looked at their watches — at 11:30 in the morning of Dec. 27, while they were at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. “All of a sudden, we heard the sound of fighter jets overhead,” Musnitsky recalled. Hamas had broken the shaky truce and sent a hail of rockets into southern Israel, and the Israeli Air Force had gone into action to stop them.
The only change to their itinerary was a rerouting to avoid Beersheva, which had come under direct attack. For the rest, they continued as if nothing had changed.
Not one member of the group chose to leave Israel early after the Gaza war broke out.
“Everyone phoned home to let their families know they were all right, and the people at home were panicking,” Musnitsky said. “But not one soul wanted to leave early.”
They got regular briefings on the situation and felt total confidence that those guiding them knew how to keep them safe. “It was tremendously peaceful,” she said. “Life went on, with all its vibrancy.”
Paris mob
When they visited a naval base near Eilat, they saw preparations for action from the ocean. The commander stopped what he was doing to explain to them exactly what the navy’s role would be if it entered the battle.
The only thing that upset the group was what they saw on CNN and the British Sky News service back at the hotel. “People became more and more enraged,” Musnitsky said. “They kept saying, ‘They’re not telling the real story.”
For Musnitsky, the tougher part was still to come. After leaving Israel, she and her son went to visit family in Paris. They were happily exploring “the city of love,” when in the Opera Lafayette District they came face to face with a roaring mob of 21,000 Arab supporters of Hamas.
That, she said, was really frightening.
Had her husband been with her, with his kipa atop his head, things might have turned violent, but he wasn’t and no one in their group — including the dark-haired, slender American rabbi herself — was visibly Jewish. The crowd ignored them.
Even in Paris, Jewish equanimity was in evidence. Musnitsky said that visiting the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Le Marais, she saw life proceeding absolutely normally. People were eating falafel in outdoor cafes, and going about their daily chores without any evident concern.
Asked if she was glad to be back home, Musnitsky hesitated. “There was no sigh of relief,” she said. Even under those rough circumstances, she said, being in Israel had been special.
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