The Return

We were advised to be at Ben Gurion airport at least three hours ahead of our scheduled departure time, and it's a good thing we followed that advice!

The group arrived at the airport and was shuffled into its own line at the check-in. Before we can get our boarding passes, Israeli security has to approve our passports and screen our luggage. The rabbi, as leader of our group, was interviewed for at least twenty minutes by a security official. (As usual, security is made up of very young people, probably doing their military service, and they're all cute.) Then they came down the line to interview each of us in turn, checking for consistency in each of our answers. We all passed, but already it's been at least 30 minutes or more before we can start passing our luggage through the x-ray machine, and approach the check-in counters.

As usual, I chose the absolute worst line to queue in. Two families ahead of us had lengthy difficulties with their tickets. A brother and sister, for example, were there because their flight was cancelled the day of the London arrests. They'd been trying for three days, with very little success, to find a flight back to California. Eventually they made it onto stand-by for our flight, but it took forever and some extra cash to work that out. Since they'd been staying by the Gaza Strip for a month, and their neighborhood kept getting bombed, they were doing their best to be patient; not always managing, but they tried.

We checked our bags and got boarding passes. We still had to pass through the departure gate security, with the metal detectors and more x-rays. Unfortunately for us, the electricity short-circuited, or blew a fuse somewhere, right as we queued up. And I would have been next! They tried to fix it, but were not able to figure it out right away; I imagine they needed a part of some kind and had to look for one. So they divided us into groups of four, took us back out the way we came, lined us up back at the first checkpoint, asked us more questions and we opened our bags for them. Then we were escorted to a different part of the terminal where we passed through a metal detector in a room which I think would normally be reserved for private interviews with real suspects. I flunked this one three times before we figured out why. (It was the shoes, of course, but they took my shoes to some other room, where I presume they ran further tests of some sort, before giving them back to me.) From here, we were escorted through the final security check point and allowed to proceed to the gate, with less than half an hour left before boarding time.

Following a very long flight with mediocre food and insufficient drink, we descended into Toronto. The stewardess was confused about why Mark and I needed two customs forms for the United States but only one for Canada, but oh well: I was too tired to explain the legal issues. We entered Canada without incident.

But in Toronto, if you're flying to the US you go through United States passport control and customs before you board the airplane. (By the time you board, you're cleared for US entry already, and you arrive in a domestic, rather than international, terminal.) The US passport control agent did not like that I had a stamp in Arabic (from Jordan) in my passport; nor did she like the visa to visit Cambodia. I was detained.

They put me in a waiting room, where I was left to be surveilled on camera for about fifteen minutes, before being interviewed. Maybe they were running an i.d. check of some kind, checking for a rap sheet or an FBI blacklist. I didn't get out my cell phone to make any calls, I didn't get agitated or nervous, I just sat there as patiently as a zen monk in a cowboy hat. During the interview, I was basically asked the same three questions in about five different ways: What was my purpose coming to the United States? What was my purpose being in Israel? And especially, How do I explain these stamps in my passport? The key to getting this over with as quickly and painlessly as possible, I felt, was to answer with the shortest possible responses (e.g. "I'm a tourist." "Yes." "No."), to smile occasionally but not too much, and above all to not behave anxiously or with anger. I refrained from pointing out that I could hardly be a communist agitator and an Islamist extremist at the same time. She opened my bags, did a fairly thorough search (including a chemical test for explosives).

Eventually I was allowed to proceed, where I found Mark alone waiting for me before passing to US Customs. I was very glad he waited! :-)

We made it to the gate only to find out our flight had been delayed by hours; partly because of increased security measures but I think also a jet broke down somewhere. They were flying an empty plane from New York to pick us up. Because of the delay, we ended up arriving in San Francisco very early Monday instead of Sunday night.

But except for that, the flight was okay.