The Lufthansa LH690 rescue flight for Israelis stranded abroad took off on Tuesday evening with only half of the 160 passengers who were slated to board the plane, stranding 80 Israelis in the Frankfurt airport, mainly Chareidim, including a young avraich from Belgium whose family was waiting for him in Israel to begin his mother’s levaya.
The flight, which had been approved by the Israeli government, was scheduled to leave at 6:55 p.m. on Tuesday evening but due to a delay caused by bureaucratic difficulties and a lack of clarity on the part of Lufthansa staff of the documents the Israelis were required to present, boarding only opened 40 minutes before the scheduled takeoff time.
The plane then took off after only half of the passengers were aboard, reportedly due to Israeli pressure for the plane to take off on time and/or a lack of enough Lufthansa staff members to process all the necessary paperwork.
Eighty Israelis, mainly Chareidim, were stranded at the airport, including a large group of schochtim and mashgichim who were returning from South America.
Sadly, another Israeli who was left at the airport was an avreich from Belgium whose mother in Ashdod passed away on Tuesday morning at the age of 43 after a prolonged illness. The family was waiting for him to arrive before beginning the levaya. Sadly, when they heard he didn’t make it on the plane, they had no choice but to hold the levaya without him. The son was left to bemoan his loss, sitting on the floor of the airport.
The stranded Israelis slept at the airport overnight, with pictures on social media showing the passengers sleeping on the floor and benches. Passengers tried to secure a seat on other rescue flights but there were no seats available for another week. One passenger, a Chabad chassid from Mexico, gave up and booked a flight back to Mexico.
Meanwhile, Chabad shlichim in Frankfurt came to the rescue, and a team of shluchim, led by Rav Moshe Mendleson, brought kosher food for all the passengers.
Fortunately, later on Wednesday, Transportation Minister Miri Regev ordered that approval be granted for a special flight to bring the Israelis in the airport back to Israel.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
3 Responses
why do only social media pictures talk to the Israeli government???
Eretz Yisroel takes care of their people.
Last year, “Eretz HaKodesh”, with the stated purpose of forcing the Zionists to acting better towards Jews, lied to tens of thousands of frum people, fooling so many into literally becoming Zionists (when “EH” falsely claimed, among other things, that joining the WZO, to vote in their elections, did not mean becoming a Zionist – when that is exactly what it means).
Rav Aharon Feldman, Shlit”A, both last year during the WZO vote period, and at the recent Agudah Convention, stated that it was terribly wrong and a chilul Hashem to literally join the Zionists and vote in the WZO.
It seems that Hashem is showing the world what it means for His children (to go against Rav Feldman’s and all others’ Daas Torah,) to want to be dependent on the Zionists rather than to despise and ignore the Zionists as much as possible and depend only on Hashem.
Before the WZO vote and then Covid, people could, at will, fly back-and-forth to the Zionist-controlled areas of E”Y. No special permission needed. No masks needed. No Covid vaccines needed. Etc.
Now, after the WZO vote and then Covid, Jews need special Zionist permission and “emergency”/”rescue” flights to fly to/from Israel, and even that permission and those special flights don’t always help, as this story illustrates.
May Hashem please forgive His children and bring Moshiach immediately BB”A.