One passenger showed up at New York JFK and bought tickets for everyone looking to travel to Israel with a notice to join the reserves. The country has activated 360,000 civilian reservists, representing around 4% of the entire population.
Reportedly he paid for 250 seats on an El Al Boeing 787-9 which holds 282 passengers. This photo is of donations that were also being made to the Israeli military and soldiers.
From a high ranking person at El-Al: Yesterday, a Haredi man arrived at JFK with a $500,000 credit card and paid for the plane tickets for anyone who showed him a reserve duty callup notice. He ended up paying for 250 tickets. https://t.co/30jq8tHDfw
— Noam Blum (@neontaster) October 10, 2023
Thousands of Israelis are making the trip back as a call to service in the face of the Hamas invasion. However this act of paying for their tickets – which you might expect to be viewed with great generosity and patriotism – is actually generating controversy. That’s because of the profile of the man identified as having covered the expense.
Haredi are strict orthodox Jews who represent perhaps one in eight in Israel and growing. They tend towards very traditional practices, including sex separation in public, and are generally against technology to the extent it might corrupt (so while efforts to ban internet access haven’t been successful, some use non-internet enabled cell phones). Many do not listen to the radio or read newspapers, preferring religious lectures. While battles with Islamic fundamentalism are often framed as modernity versus ancient mores, that is not the case here.
Men in this category limit their participation in compulsory military service or exempt themselves from it altogether through religious study exemptions. Many receive government stipends for their study which takes the place of (rather than coming before) work. They are politically important, skew hostile towards peace, and do not themselves fight. Their communities tend to be poor, though the man paying for tickets is obviously an exception.
He’s receiving much criticism online for paying so that others might fight, rather than participating in the fight himself, though it’s unclear whether he’s even eligible to do so.
That is one helluva gesture. What a great Countryman.
Sadly a magnificent altruistic act of care and solidarity is being maligned out ignorance and prejudice. As an american he cant fight in the army anyway.
@Sam Karchi – I write “it’s unclear whether he’s even eligible to” fight himself, but do we know that he’s American?
Great work but then again, why is El Al charging reservist to go serve the country. It is not like vacationers are filling up the plane going to Tel Aviv. As a flag carrier, just a bad look for PR to get this kind of thing out in news.
Yesterday Bloomberg Technology (11am CT) carried an interview with an Israeli venture capitalist. He was too old for conscription — so he enlisted as a volunteer!
Why would the Israeli government not pay for any/all airline tix for reservists, etc., to come back to Israel to serve???
Richard,
Does Israel have a recent history of calling in large number of reservists from abroad too and having the system infrastructure to arrange for everyone’s travel plans when they are abroad? The Israeli government has a lot on its plate already without having to focus on how to get reservists from the US to Israel when it has called in the largest number of its reserves at the quickest pace in at least the last 30+ years.
Maybe the guy at the airport who bought these tickets will get reimbursed by the Israeli government or maybe he won’t. If he does, it will be one big manufactured spend thing that helped out some people financially with making it to their duty call. If not, he will have helped out a bunch of those travelers.
A lot of stereotypes about the group the guy paying is supposedly from but nothing about him as an individual.
So, what exactly are the philosophical differences between the Haredi and orthodox Muslims? They sound exactly the same, and both religions have Abrahamic roots.
In addition, the Haredi, much like those here in NYC live off welfare, have large families and contribute almost nothing to the city.
For the record, I am not anti-semitic or Islamophobic, all religions disgust me.
jns, that is right.
It was a few decades ago that I was on a flight with a young Haredim man (in rabbinical school IIRC) on a flight from JFK to EZE who was having a talk with an Indian guy about the same age as him. The former was asking the latter questions about sex with Indian women and other such topics I previously wouldn’t have expected to be topics of public conversation from such persons. And yet there was a view into how appearing to be part of a very ultra-orthodox religious community doesn’t mark the end of diversity within and a lot of guys being just like some other guys even when appearing at first glance as being from very different cultural backgrounds.
WileyDog,
For one, orthodox Muslims have Mohammad and Jesus as prophets of the religion while Orthodox Jews’ doctrine doesn’t accept Jesus and Mohammad as prophets.
This is not the feel good story it was made out to be. El Al is running repatriation flights for reservists being called up for active duty. They should not be charging for them. The bill should be going to the state.
Gary, I know you’re trying to be helpful, but the stereotypes on Haredi Jews aren’t helpful.
Haredim are not a monolith, yet these stereotypes persist where they wouldn’t be said about any other race or religious group today.
I’m not even sure what “hostile towards peace” is supposed to mean?
There are certainly Israeli Haredim that serve in the IDF, though Israeli Haredim are very different from US Haredim.
There are groups of Haredim that have no internet access and there are others such as myself that live online.
Etc.
@Dan – I am not treating Haredi Jews as a monolith, even as I write in broad strokes, suggesting they “tend towards” are “generally against” “Many do not” “limit their participation” “Many receive” “skew hostile towards peace” “tend to be”
These are not absolutes or claims about all people!
The multi-directional discomfort with diversity of practice and belief within a religious grouping? A story as old as human history, even with its modern face too.
@guwonder
Happy to tell you we crossed the 1500 arabs dead
The narrative is changing and now of course turkey and other dictators are saying israel is bombarding civilians, which of course will not stop for the foreseeable future
Will be happy to update you once we reach 10000 roaches dead and so on and so on
Am israel chai and you can GFY
@Gary Leff
Would you write those generalizations, several of which are simply inaccurate, about any other group?
I understand it’s commonly done and misconceptions loom large. But that doesn’t justify paragraphs like these.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/opinion/haredi-jews-ultra-orthodox.html
Hope he used the best points earning credit card for that! A potential big payday!
So you are telling me there were 250 people just waiting at the airport with no ticket? I can’t believe you keep falling for these things