by Johanna Ginsberg
NJJN Staff Writer

January 22, 2009

When Israel started its rocket assault on Gaza on Dec. 27, Amy Blumkin of Short Hills was traveling in Israel with her synagogue and her extended family, celebrating her daughter Lily’s bat mitzva.

She described “standing in the hotel, watching Fox News. I saw what was going on. I remember being concerned. But never at any point did we think, okay, we’re going to pack our bags and go home,” she said. “Our tour guide pulled out a map and showed us where everything was happening. We became more aware, and we had a lot of discussions,” she said.

“Now, we read the newspaper differently. We watch television differently. It was a life-altering experience.”

Blumkin traveled with 50 people, mostly from Oheb Shalom Congregation in South Orange. The group included five teens who with their extended families celebrated becoming b’nei mitzva on top of Masada on Dec. 29. They were there from Dec. 22 to Jan. 3.

“The juxtaposition of the fighting for survival against our own simchas, made the b’nei mitzva on Masada even more meaningful,” said Blumkin.

Groups from other local synagogues were there as well, including Temple B’nai Abraham in Livingston and a combined group of 39 members from Temple Beth Am in Parsippany and Temple Har Shalom in Warren, whose rabbis, Ronald Kaplan and Randi Musnitsky, respectively, are married to each other.

The attacks had an immediate impact on the Beth Am/Har Shalom group. While traveling south, they saw caravans of military vehicles, tanks, and cannons on a flatbed truck.

“It was a very strong visual image that Israel was going to engage in a massive war,” said Kaplan.

Har Shalom’s group organized discussion groups to provide background and context. “We could not have predicted the outbreak of war during our visit, but I was glad to see it. Enough is enough,” he said, referring to the eight years of shelling by Hamas that preceded the attack. “I was behind it 100 percent,” Kaplan said.

One of their guides was a student who had been evacuated from Beersheva when it became a target of attacks. In fact, the trip was supposed to return from the southern part of Israel after the outbreak of hostilities; instead of going through Sde Boker and Beersheva, they had to be rerouted along the Jordanian border.

The war erupted while some of the travelers were at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. “All of a sudden, we heard the sound of fighter jets overhead,” Musnitsky recalled.

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.

“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.”

For Beth Am, the trip continued to cast its shadow. Kaplan has canceled a program scheduled for Tu B’Shevat on Feb. 9, which was to focus on the environmental work of the Jewish National Fund. Instead, several trip participants will speak to the entire congregation about their experiences, specifically about how it felt to be in Israel during a time of war, what lessons they learned, and how their experiences strengthened their Jewish identity. Kaplan also focused his February bulletin article on the war.

Members of both groups said the timing of these trips gave them unexpected insight into what Kaplan called “the reality of what Israelis endure day to day.”

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