Chapter One - Security, security, and more security

My parents dropped me off at the Toronto airport at around 6:15, some fifteen minutes before I was "required" to be there. This was the first in a long series of instances where I was punctual when I didn't have to be, but it was fine.

I met up with the group and experienced an interesting shock when I discovered that Leah (pronounced "lay-ah", like the princess), the madricha (group leader), was not much older than me, and black. From the sound of her voice in the phone conversation I had had with her, not to mention her apparent inability to effectively use a computer keyboard, I had thought she was much older, and I had just naturally pictured her with the same skin colour as myself. As it turns out, she is from Ethiopia, and as for her age, that probably doesn't require an explanation.

Steve, the other madrich, was a frat boy, and I have no amusing anecdotes about him at this time.

I also met back up with Marie, whom I had met earlier in a "mandatory" orientation meeting. It was a Toronto meeting, but there were a lot of us from the London trip on it.

"London trip? What are you on about, Bryan?" Let me back up.

I was originally supposed to be on a trip departing on the 13th, but my cousin Sarah's Bat Mitzvah was that weekend so I changed my date to the 16th. The trip leaving on the 16th was called "AEPi/London/Other" because it was organized mostly by the Jewish fraternity at Western, Alpha-Epsilon-Pi. Interestingly enough, my cousin Daniel is a member of the Dalhousie chapter of the fraternity. That is not relevant here.

Two Sundays before the trip, I went to one of these orientation meetings. I couldn't attend the London one because, well, it was in London, so Leah, in one of her trademark cryptic e-mails, directed me to one of the Toronto orientations. So I showed up, but alas, there was no orientation. The more astute of you will have done the calculations and discovered that this orientation was scheduled to take place on the evening of February 6, otherwise known as Superbowl Sunday!

So I stood around like a doofus for a while and met Esther, another London birthrighter who had also been directed to this fictional meeting. I played the piano in the JCC a bit for her, and then we left.

Fast forward to the following Wednesday. Leah again directed me to a Toronto orientation. This time I had to take the bus in from Hamilton in the middle of the week, so I went to great lengths to confirm that this meeting would actually take place. All signs indicated yes. I went to the JCC at the designated time and . . . what the heck? There was no one there.

After a few minutes I met Josh, who, interestingly enough, was also from the London trip. Was this to be a repeat of Sunday? Luckily, no. We had just been directed to the meeting half an hour early. We went out to the atrium to wait. Josh mentioned that a friend of his was flying in from the States for the trip. I didn't think much of it at the time.

While we were waiting, Esther arrived, and I met Marie for the first time. They arrived together, but I don't know how or where they met. At the time, Marie seemed fairly quiet and normal.

I met Ilana, also from the London group, in the meeting.

I could describe the orientation, but this flashback has already gone on too long.

So as I said, I met back up with Marie.

At this point the process of getting through security began. The first step was to be interrogated by some extra security guards that weren't even part of the official airport security. The one who interviewed me, who was not quite fluent in English, asked a number of seemingly irrelevant questions about my Jewish background and why I was visiting Israel. No doubt the questions themselves were indeed irrelevant. Probably if I had answered them in a certain way I would have been branded as a terrorist and thrown in jail. Luckily, I answered them like a birthrighter and not like a terrorist.

At one point, the interview went something like this:

• Guard: What is the last Jewish holiday you are familiar with?
• Me: What do you mean?
• Guard: What is the last Jewish holiday you are familiar with?
• Me: Uh, I guess last Yom Kippur...
• Guard: No, what is the last Jewish holiday you are familiar with?
• [Long, awkward pause]
• Me: I don't understand the question.
• Guard: That's okay, it doesn't matter.

After that, we went through a number of other checkpoints, though none as entertaining as that first one. Although I suppose it was pretty entertaining when my suitcase came flying out of the x-ray machine at mach three. They treat those things none too gently.

During the process I saw Josh in line behind me, with his friend who flew in from the States. It turned out to be Gill Frank, an old, old friend of my brother's. Small world, eh? He's studying for a Ph.D at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. I mention that because it became annoying at times, how much smarter than me he is.

After getting through security we killed a lot of time inside the terminal. Most of the birthrighters bought bottles of alcoholic beverages at the Duty Free shop. This did not bode well.

We also worked out a system of taking attendance. Each birthrighter was assigned a number (I was 27), and we just called them out in order, so that the entire role call should take under half a minute (there were thirty-three of us). At least that was the idea. Throughout the entire trip we kept screwing it up and it usually took at least a couple of minutes to straighten it out. Which just goes to show that the education system in Canada is insufficient, since it seems like our university students don't know how to count.

The remainder of the time in the airport was fairly uneventful, and soon enough we boarded the plane.

The plane ride was pleasant enough, if somewhat long, totaling eleven hours. I was sitting next to a guy named Aaron from my trip, and he was next to Danielle from a Montreal-based trip that was leaving at the same time. They were characters, I can assure you. At this point I busted out the camera, since I figured I wasn't going to have another opportunity to photograph Danielle, her being on a different trip. That turned out not to be the case, but whatever.

Danielle warned me that she wasn't photogenic. She wasn't kidding. What is that bizarre expression on her face?

The food on El-Al is surprisingly good. If it is indicative of airplane food in general, which I don't believe it is, I don't know what everyone is talking about. I wolfed down my dinner and breakfast (not simultaneously) and since Aaron and Danielle didn't like the pie that came with dinner, I ended up eating about two and a half of them in total. Yeah, I'm a pig. I also noticed that there was a small container of "52% whipped spread" with each meal. The remainder of the text was in Hebrew. 52% what, I wonder. I never did figure that out.

I was too keyed up and in too uncomfortable a position, so unfortunately I couldn't sleep at all. When the lights went out, I had to write this journal by the light of my flashlight. I wrote my first rant, although the format of this journal hadn't become clear in my mind by that time so it's not as rantish as the others.

I witnessed (read: eavesdropped on) an interesting conversation between Aaron and Danielle about how a trip full of Jews is the perfect place to "hook up" with as many Israelis as possible. There is something about such a trip that encourages "breeding", said Danielle, comparing birthright to something she called "Jew Camp", upon the nature of which I cannot speculate. Inspired, I wrote a rant about it.

Upon arrival at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv at approximately 2:00pm Israel time, we shuffled off the plane and went through customs pretty quickly. I was impressed with the efficiency of the Israeli airport. Compared to the Toronto one, that is. Within minutes we were standing outside, enjoying the fresh Mediterranean air.

Stay tuned for further adventures.

Chapter Two