Israel - Pesach 2025. Exodus.
After my last trip to Israel, when the airport lines were so outrageously long that I had to call my friend Einav — who wasn’t even working at the time — to help me get through before I missed my flight, I knew I couldn’t go through that again. Especially not with kids. "I just don’t think, at this age, that I’m meant to live an uncomfortable life.” So before this trip, we booked a VIP airport service for the flight home.
Our flight was scheduled for 1:00 a.m. Normally, that would mean arriving at the airport by 10:00 p.m. at the latest, and even then, you’re cutting it close with those infamous lines. But the VIP service told us we could arrive at 11:00 p.m., which was amazing. We booked our car for 10:00 p.m., and everything was going smoothly—until it wasn’t.
About halfway through the ride, traffic on the highway came to a complete standstill. Something had happened—possibly an accident—but nothing was moving. And we were creeping up on 11:00 p.m. fast. Then, in true Israeli fashion, cars started backing up on the highway toward the nearest exit. Our driver joined in, reversed along the shoulder to the exit right nearby, and managed to get us around the blockage. We ended up arriving at the airport around 11:10 or 11:15 p.m., which was pretty incredible given the situation.
When we arrived, a woman from the VIP service was waiting for us with two carts ready to go. Instead of going to Departures, she took us through Arrivals. We loaded our luggage onto the carts, and she wheeled us over to security. We still had to wait—but instead of the usual hour-plus, we were behind just two people.
Now, normally with VIP, they would check you in right there and take your bags. But my friend Einav—who you might remember from her Bnot Sherut days at HAFTR in 2019—was working that night and told us not to check in downstairs. She said to come up to her station. So we did—and at that point, we were being walked around by two VIP reps. No idea why two, but we weren’t complaining. I guess they just knew we were that hopeless.
At Einav’s counter, not only did she check us in, she let the girls come behind the desk and help with the whole process. It was adorable. The VIP reps were entertained too. I don’t think they had ever seen passengers working the computer and tagging the luggage.
From there, the VIP team (plus Einav) walked us straight through security, where there was no line at all. They even did the passport scanning for us. The whole process was seamless. Between the four of us and the three of them, it was almost a one-to-one ratio. They walked us all the way to the terminal. That’s where the VIP team left us, but Einav stayed.
We made a quick stop at the duty free toy store (somehow ended up buying a doll), picked up water, and by the time we got to the gate, they were already boarding. No surprise—it was already close to midnight. Einav walked us to the front of the line, scanned our tickets at the gate, and got us on the plane without waiting. It was amazing. Thank you Einav. Usually going home from Israel is such a nightmare, but this was smooth, calm, and actually enjoyable.
The flight itself was fine. As usual, I was sitting with the girls, and Tzvi was across the aisle—but he wasn’t feeling great and was mostly out of commission. [Tzvi: Getting on the plane I actually felt pretty good, much better than I’d felt all day and almost normal. So normal, that I thought, ‘hey, why not eat the airplane meatballs.’ They weren’t bad and then I dozed off. When I woke up, I went straight to the bathroom and felt like I was going to black out on the way. The rest of the flight I felt nauseous, until the nausea was replaced by a headache that made my head feel like it was going to explode. It wasn’t fun.] The girls slept on me for most of the flight. I watched Frequency, which I hadn’t seen in years and is still a great movie. I also watched Crazy Rich Asians (again), and something else I don’t even remember.
When we landed, Tzvi rushed off the plane to hit the bathroom. Global Entry took all of two seconds, and when they asked if we had anything to declare, Tzvi said, “Yes, we have five bottles of wine.”. The woman just said ‘that’s fine’ and told us to move on.
Then—shock of all shocks—when we got to baggage claim, our luggage was already there. No waiting. I don’t know if it was the VIP sticker on one of our tags, or maybe because Hallie and Madeleine did the check-in magic. Last time, we had to wait over an hour and they lost a bag. This time, everything was there and ready. Amazing.
Our driver showed up after just a few minutes, and we were off. I think we were home by 7:00 a.m., maybe even a bit earlier.
It was truly an excellent flight home. [Tzvi: for some of us.] A perfect ending to a wonderful trip. [Tzvi: perfect?] Huge thanks to my parents for making it all possible—we’re so grateful. [Tzvi: thanks.]
Until next time.