By Robin Kulwin

On March 1, I arrived in Israel to visit the 87 teenagers I had brought there just five weeks earlier. Within hours, the world turned upside-down.

I’m the director of admissions for URJ Heller School in Israel, an American accredited high school on a kibbutz just outside Jerusalem. Each semester dozens of Jewish teens leave their home schools for Israel, where in addition to the usual math and chemistry and literature, they study Jewish history and Hebrew. The whole country is their classroom. For students and staff alike, it is an exciting experience, academically and physically rigorous … and this semester, more than a little nerve-wracking.

The challenges had begun before I arrived. The students would soon leave for their week in Poland, studying the Holocaust. It is always a moving and emotional part of the semester, a deep experience the students look forward to. They know it wouldn’t be pleasant, but they also know it was important.

On February 26, Israel’s Education Minister canceled all Israeli school trips to Poland because of the extensive coronavirus outbreaks there. The ban was to be in effect until March 4, which now, of course, seems almost laughable. My colleagues immediately began work to fill this gap in the schedule as we quickly realized there would be no trip to Poland at all.

In the days to come, we sent detailed messages keeping parents up to date not only with the latest news in Israel but how we were handling all of the “what if” questions. In response, an overwhelming majority of parents let us know that they felt their students were safer remaining with us on the kibbutz, that we had their support and our messaging inspired confidence that our leadership would make the right decisions.

The “what if” questions were brutal. What if someone on the kibbutz is diagnosed with the virus? What happens if all of our students are required to be quarantined? How will we get them their meals? What if the hospitals are over-run? If quarantined ... our students were living in a dorm-like setting -- 2 rooms, 1 bathroom, 4 students – how would we keep healthy students from going stir crazy? What happens if they close the airport? And new questions kept coming up.

My husband and I spoke daily – thank you WhatsApp! – and the American and Israeli experiences followed similar paths. The rules changed daily if not hourly and conflicting messages were the norm. Over time, the number of people in Israel who could gather together went from 250 to 100 to 10. When 100 became the maximum, the kibbutz dining hall had to serve meals in shifts. Chairs were removed so only 100 remained and they were placed farther apart. More and more places became off-limits.

The kids were great. Concerned but not worried. Not one of the 87 students asked if they could go home. Aware but not overly anxious about contracting Coronavirus. In fact, the only thing that made them nervous was the possibility they would not be able to spend their entire semester in Israel as planned.

We did everything we could to make staying possible, but our task became nearly impossible when the government banned gatherings of more than 10 people on Saturday night, and then truly impossible a few hours later when the Ministry of Tourism said tourists needed to leave the country -- right away. Though the Israeli government’s decisions caused enormous difficulties for us, its quick and firm actions were the right thing to do.

Once we knew we had to terminate the semester, we tried to move quickly. The big problem became clear almost immediately -- there were no commercial flights with 88 seats available. Our travel agent tirelessly tried to work this out. I was on the phone with him until 4:30 a.m. Sunday. So how to get our kids on an airplane and quickly? Why, of course....you charter one!

Which is how our kids ended up at Ben Gurion airport late Monday night, boarding a spanking new El Al Boeing 777 that had been teed up just for Heller High, two similar groups to ours, and individuals visiting Israel who needed to leave and contacted us on hearing there might be seats available. (I heard one of my colleagues discussing the cost; my hair is still standing on end.)

The flight itself was easy. My students were much more subdued on this return flight than when I escorted them over. The end really was in sight. We arrived on-time at JFK Tuesday at 4 a.m., handed over our health declaration forms at U.S. Customs and headed into the terminal. As the solo shepherd with her 87 sheep, I waited for the last one to pick up their luggage and helped them get to their connecting flight.

All went smoothly except for a short-lived hiccup in Terminal 5 when check-in agents decided that one of my students from Hawaii would have to be quarantined for 14 days before flying home. It seems the agents were convinced that Israel was in Europe. Once a supervisor, who was evidently better at geography, arrived, the situation was resolved. The student is now safely home with his family.

I’d returned to this same Terminal 4 with many groups at semester’s end and, at first, the scene looked the same. The kids hugging one another closely – social distance be damned – not wanting to separate from one another. Parents’ eyes filled with tears of joy at seeing their children.

But on second look, this time was a little different. The kids’ hugs were tighter, the parents’ tears were tears of relief that their children were safely home. And the normally tumultuous Terminal 4… was eerily quiet.

Everybody has had, is having, or will have at least one special coronavirus story. This is mine.

I learned through this that I work for an extraordinary organization that showed that safety and security, health and well-being are a top priority. I learned that I have incomparable colleagues who literally worked day and night to make informed decisions. Together we proved that frequent, open, and honest communication is key to building trust with students and parents.

And now I’m happy to enjoy the shelter of my own home and pray that this comes to an end soon.

Robin Kulwin is the director of admissions at Heller High, which provides an accredited semester in Israel for Jewish high school students from the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest movement in Jewish life.

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