Bruchim habaim

When the planeload of 225 new olim arrived at Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion airport early Tuesday morning, about 1,000 Israelis were there to greet them. When they came off the plane, they were embraced by a waving, cheering crowd of young IDF soldiers, family and friends and Israelis of every description, waving Israeli flags, handing them gifts, clapping, singing and shouting "Mazel tov!" Israeli television covered the whole thing, and Nefesh B'Nefesh ran a live video feed on its Web site.

Our olim stepped onto Israeli soil as full citizens, thanks to a high tech document scanning process that Nefesh B'Nefesh is the only non-governmental organization authorized to use. Midway through the flight, NBN staff had scanned all the olim's passports and citizenship documents, and downloaded them to the Israeli immigration office. 

After they wound through the crowd outside, the olim were welcomed inside Terminal 1--set aside specifically for NBN flights and as free of red tape as possible--by NBN founders Rabbi Yehoshua Fass and Tony Gelbert, along with donors and dignitaries such as Benjamin Netanyahu ("Bibi" to his friends) and former ambassador to the U.S. Danny Ayalon. 

"Bruchim habaim"--"Welcome home!"--was the refrain from the podium. Several of my new friends were interviewed by Israeli TV--the Glazer family, with adorable three-year-old Ariana, and Bethany (now Batya) Serota. Batya had just passed the bar exam before making aliyah from Boston, and her African-American heritage is glowing proof that Judaism spans the human rainbow. And, it being a Jewish event, there were refreshments--and speeches.

A long line of young men and women of the IDF led us all in singing "Hatikvah"--two hundred twenty-five hopes fulfilled.

And after?

After the tears, hugs and kisses, the parents gathered their children, and everyone gathered their carry-ons, and we joined the real world again. After the high came the mundane: Their first taste of life as Israelis was baggage claim.

They had come with bags and boxes and cartons and crates, with whatever they cherished most and whatever they thought they wouldn't be able to find in Israel.  One family brought a big box of Duncan Hines mixes and other comfort items to make their first weeks seem familiar. The carousels took a good hour or two to disgorge the contents of the planes, and families pushed over big trolleys to pack it all on. They'd been told El Al would let them bring three 70-pound packages per person, and some had found with relief that the rules got bent enough to bring quite a bit more. It was a worn-down, low-key chaos, with Samsonite and Louis Vuitton cases and guitars and sports equipment and beaten-up bags and boxes from Cosco jostling each other for position on the belts. Kids hugged stuffed animals, or played or skated around the enormous room, babies cried, and people tied up their possessions and--finally--went home.

The journalists and the bloggers who were on the flight covering the story as NBN guests went home, too. Some of them live here, and others--like me--only wish we did. But you'll hear more about that later.

Shabbat shalom to all "my" olim, and bruchim habaim.