Musing from a journey

And we are back in the United States of America, and it is like we never left. Coffee cakes and Fanta for Husband #1, laundry, watching videos of the cuties, more laundry, back to the videos. … It’s all good.

I decided that I would use this column as a closer to Pesach 2026 in Israel, and because I have a very short concentration span, there will be other non-sequiturs flying out at you.

First of all, and I might have brought this up before, why are the rudest people in Israel always at the Kotel when I am there? For the life of me I cannot understand it. But, for all you moms out there who are thinking to go to the Kotel with your little ones, a lot of the chairs are new, and they have these stickers on them that are really easy to pull off.

This was our activity for 25 minutes when the “adults” were davening and Babka was trying to entertain Danish and her sister before they started having a meltdown. And that was my take on that situation. Next.

Husband #1 and his mom both really like gefilte fish. For some reason, the hotel ran out during the first days of Yom Tov. When we asked for more, first they brought us a plate of I am not sure what kind of fish that was, but, it was most certainly not the famous gefilte fish. And then they told us that because of the war, they weren’t able to get gefilte fish. Umm, they served us 50 different kinds of salmon, but gefilte fish was hard to get? But then they had a bounty of it for the second days and everyone was happy again. Next.

El Al had the courtesy to book me on the flight home that I was originally supposed to go on, but it was landing in Kennedy instead of Newark. I was not asking them to change it. I got what I got and I did not ask for something else. Mostly out of fear of them telling me that because I wasn’t happy with my flight, they were going to cancel it and put me on a flight to Newark — in July…

Would you believe the flight to Newark that I was supposed to be on was first delayed five hours in the airport and then, after takeoff, they had to make an emergency landing in Copenhagen? The flight, altogether, took about 20 hours to get back to Newark. My flight to Kennedy, thank you Hashem, had delicious onion quiche and an abundant amount of coconut macaroons.

Ironically, I did not have one macaroon the entire Pesach, but on the flight home, they must have had leftover from the Kosher for Passover snack selection, and there you go.

At 10 a.m., 35 minutes before my flight was supposed to take off, they made an announcement that they will be sounding the siren for Yom HaShoah. “In the case of an actual emergency, the emergency siren will sound.” Good to know.

I had never been in Israel for this before, so at 10 a.m., when the siren went off, you could hear a pin drop at the airport, and I was surprised at how emotional I felt. Apparently, this feeling did not extend to the large chasidish-looking man standing in front of me, because he answered a phone call and was chatting away. The entire El Al staff started shushing him.

When it was over, one of the El Al attendants started shouting at him in Hebrew about what an embarrassment he is. The non-Jewish man standing next to me, who had started talking to me before this whole thing happened, wanted me to translate for him. It was all a little surreal.

And finally, let us talk airplane security. Shoes on or shoes off? You never know what they are going to tell you. Computers out of bag or computers stay in bag? Also a whimsical decision. But, somehow, everyone agrees that a bottle of water is very, very bad. Good thing I don’t drink water.

Thank you for listening.

Banji Ganchrow of Teaneck has mixed emotions about being back, but is very excited to announce the birth of Strudel’s newest sister. May Hashem grant her with only good health, and may she bring only joy to her amazing parents.