Starving Passengers,nearly 17 hours without food, receive an avalanche of pizza, bagels, fish, meat, soda and crackers schlepped in blizzard conditions by stores and individuals.
Five Towns, Far Rockaway community
rescues stranded El Al passengers with Glatt Kosher food
With their plane delayed, 500 stranded El Al passengers in JFK airport
are eating well thanks to the generosity of community members in Far
Rockaway and the Five Towns.
Trouble began for passengers on the 002 El Al flight to Israel almost
immediately after they boarded their plane at 7 p.m last night. A heavy
snowstorm blanketed the east coast, grounding air traffic to a
standstill. The flight was continuously delayed and when El Al finally
decided to cancel the flight, the airport had closed and the runway had
iced over. Passengers were forced to stay on the airplane until three
a.m. By the time passengers managed to disembark, they, along with
another El Al flight that had been delayed, faced another hurdle.
"You can't get kosher food at four in the morning," said Roberta Bauer
of Far Rockaway who was traveling with her husband.
As the night turned to day, El Al attempted to get sandwiches to the
passengers but the truck got snowed in.
It had been a particularly long night for Rabbi Benzion Klatzko. Leaving
Monsey at six on Sunday night to make his 11 p.m. flight, Rabbi Klatzko
made it to the airport at about the same time the passengers of El Al
flight 002 were allowed off the plane. Rabbi Klatzko, the national
director of outreach for the Wolfson Foundation, was running a trip for
unaffiliated Jewish college students. Altogether over 200 of the
passengers were visiting Israel as part of Birthright and Aish HaTorah
programs. The delays and lack of food were having an effect on the trip
participants.
"It was pretty brutal and some of these kids were even speaking about
pulling out of the trip," Rabbi Klatzko explained.
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