Israel - Pesach 2025. The Third Plague. Plastic Wrapped Food.
Tzvi will be writing this one, but you can already tell from the title that his week must have been soooo difficult if the only “plague” he could come up with was that his food was wrapped in a lot of plastic.
As Stephanie said, my story started on Monday. Now that I'm a partner, I had to attend new partner orientation, which was split between Monday and Thursday, and then the global partner summit — a dinner on Monday night and a full day of events on Tuesday.
I won’t go into too much detail, but the short version is that I had to be out of the house by 7:30 Monday morning, barely got to see the kids, and spent the entire day at our Midtown office in session after session, learning about… honestly, I don’t even remember anymore. That night, there was a dinner at The Peak at Hudson Yards — beautiful venue, but the food was terrible. They got me kosher food from Le Marais, but it was basically like chewing a steak-shaped rock. Still, it was a nice event overall. They were handing out these Fried Frank-branded vests at the end, but they’d run out of men’s sizes other than XL (which I’m not quite up to), so I didn’t get one. Hopefully, I’ll get one eventually. I got home sometime after 11, long after the kids were asleep.
Tuesday morning was the same drill — out the door by 7:30, barely a goodbye, and back to Midtown for another full day of sessions about… again, who knows what. Lunch was fifteen minutes of unwrapping plastic and five minutes of eating overdone salmon. Then there was a cocktail party before departing for dinner, where there was another cocktail party. This time it was a different restaurant, but same story: another meteorite that looked like something Jeff Bezos’ girlfriend brought back from “space”. I got home late again but this time the house was dark and empty. I was very lonely.
Wednesday was a normal workday, finally. Then Thursday rolled around, and it was back to Midtown for the final bit of orientation from 10 to noon. After that, I took a train home, packed up, and got ready for my 5:30pm flight. My car picked me up around 2 p.m. Quick ride to the airport, smooth check-in at the business class counter. They offered me a choice between a voucher for the Virgin lounge or a $60 duty-free credit for use onboard. Since I had access to other lounges, I took the credit.
Security was quick, thanks to the business class line, and then I made my way to the Amex Centurion Lounge. I thought about checking out the Chase Sapphire Lounge, but the 45-minute wait killed that idea. The Amex Lounge was great. The food looked questionable, but I got myself a solid iced coffee. They had this little speakeasy section called the 1850 Club where I found a quiet table, ordered a Southside (a gin cocktail), and settled in to do some work. Honestly, it was kind of peaceful.
Fifteen minutes before boarding, I left the lounge and headed to the gate. Business class had its own line, and not before long we were boarding. There’s nothing quite like turning left when you get on the plane. I found my seat — 4A, which is both a window and an aisle seat — and it was beautiful. Tons of space, lay-flat seat, everything you could want. A flight attendant came by and offered me a mimosa. No complaints there.
We had a bit of a wait on the runway, but I didn’t mind. I was comfortable. Eventually we took off. They brought around menus and a wine list. Everything was already switched over for Pesach, which was unfortunate. I started with a red wine from Razi’el winery, a nice blend of Syrah and Carignan. All of the food on El Al is now curated by Asaf Granit, who is a celebrity chef in Israel and actually has restaurants around the world — including one in St. Barths that we ate at last summer. The food was fine. For the appetizer I had tuna tataki with a raisin and celery salad. For the main I chose the short rib with mashed potatoes (over the salmon or chicken options), and for dessert there was chocolate mousse. Presentation was definitely a step up from Economy, but I wouldn’t say it was life-changing.
After dinner, I did some work, then converted my seat into a bed — comforter, pillow, the whole setup. I tried putting on the slippers they gave me but they were too small. I dozed on and off, didn’t get a full night’s sleep, but it certainly felt better than what I typically get in the back of the plane. When I woke up, I did some more work and watched TV — I tearfully sipped more fine and finished the Dodgers World Series documentary on Apple TV+.
Eventually it was time for breakfast, though my seat wouldn’t switch back from bed mode, so they had to reset the whole system. Breakfast was decent again (actually tasty lox, spinach frittata with ratatouille), and though I usually avoid coffee on planes, they offered cappuccino, and I couldn’t resist seeing what an airplane cappuccino tastes like. I was pleasantly surprised — not the worst I’ve had.
Before I knew it, we were landing. Honestly, the flight to Israel is just too short. Once we landed, I headed to passport control. There were long lines — apparently Friday morning at 10 a.m. is prime time for French travelers coming in before yuntif. While I was waiting, a man started walking around, glancing at passports and handing out blue tickets. He looked at mine, handed me one, and just said “go.” No idea what that was about, but I went with it.
By the time I got to baggage claim, my bag was already out — perks of flying business. I grabbed it, made a quick stop at Aroma for an ice café slushy, and met my driver, Yoram. We got in the car and drove straight to Jerusalem.
Great flight.
