Early Saturday morning, the Rev. George Mason went to drop off his laundry in the lobby of his Jerusalem hotel. He had arrived in Israel to attend a conference in Bethlehem on Oct. 1 and then host a nine-day tour with the nonprofit Faith Commons. A few minutes later, he returned to his room and got a call: Staff could not take any more laundry “due to difficulties.”
“I said, ‘What kind of difficulties?'” Mason, 67, told The Washington Post. “He explained that Hamas had fired missiles, and I immediately realized that Israel was at war.”
More than 2,600 people have been killed since violence erupted in Israel and Gaza, with at least 25 U.S. citizens among the dead. The Israeli Tourism Ministry is helping evacuate tourists. The State Department urged American travelers to “reconsider travel” to Israel and the West Bank and issued a “do not travel” advisory for the Gaza Strip due to “terrorism, civil unrest, and armed conflict.” “The situation in Israel remains fluid, and mortar and rocket fire may occur without warning,” the ministry said Tuesday.
Mason said he and a group of about 15 people stayed in their hotel, listening to the roar of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. They weren’t sure what to do next. The country’s tourism infrastructure had shut down.
Brown Hotel founder Leon Avigad said it was a moral imperative to help people get through the crisis, citing the Hebrew phrase “Kol Yisrael Haverim,” which roughly translates to “in Israel we are all friends.”
“Now is not the time to think about economic losses. We need to ensure the safety of our citizens during this time,” Avigado said. “In these difficult times, everyone just lends a hand, no questions asked.”
Hospitality turns into relief efforts
Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport remains open, but several airlines have reduced flights to Israel. Israeli airline El Al announced it would fly on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, for the first time since 1982 to carry reservists called to duty. Many hotels have closed or switched to relief efforts. Historic sites, national parks, and nature preserves have also been closed. Cruise lines have canceled calls to Israel, and other major airlines have disembarked ships earlier than originally planned.
Until the war began, many in the travel industry, including the tourism minister, were optimistic about the outlook for 2023, even though visitor statistics were still below pre-pandemic highs. Israel finally reopened to tourists in January 2022. That year, Israel recorded 2.675 million tourists, about 41% lower than its best year ever, 2019, when it recorded 4.55 million tourists. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), tourism accounted for 2.6% of Israel’s gross domestic product and 3.8% of employment in 2019.
Some of Jerusalem’s main tourist attractions are also holy sites for multiple religions. The ancient religious complex known as the Holy City to Muslims and the Temple Mount to Jews includes Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Muslim holiest site, the Dome of the Rock, all within the retaining walls of what was once Judaism’s First Temple. The militant group Hamas cited a violent Israeli police raid on Al-Aqsa Mosque as one of its justifications for the raid.
Ben Julius, founder of Tourist Israel, which runs one of Israel’s largest travel agencies, said it was only in the past six months that the market began to recover more dramatically from the pandemic. The founder said the agency was expecting about 15,000 tourists this month alone. Since then, the company has had to cancel hundreds of tour bookings.
“The streets were like a ghost town,” Mason said of Jerusalem this week. “The stores were not open. Everyone was shocked, traumatized and nervous.”
Mason witnessed the footsteps of some 360,000 reservists (about 4% of Israel’s population of 9.8 million) who were called up to serve in the Israeli army to help with the war effort.
“Restaurants are currently unable to open because all their staff has been called up,” said Inbal Baum, owner of Israeli food tour company Delicious Israel. “The wait staff, the chefs, everyone is in uniform and fighting all over the country.”
Academics, nurses, tourists among Americans killed or missing in Israel
Baum said the mobilization has affected many in the hospitality industry, from hotel workers to her own staff. Several members of her team have gone out to volunteer. They’ve all been confirmed safe since she last checked, but one of them “has already lost a lot of friends,” Baum said.
Avigad said the company is dealing with the possibility of long-term closures of its hotels: Half of the brand’s 27 operating hotels in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Greece are now closed, potentially costing the company millions of dollars.
His main focus now is repurposing the hotel, which remains open, into an emergency shelter for people in need: families, nurses, the Israel Defense Forces and volunteers from outside Israel have moved into its rooms.
It also deployed personnel to Greece and Israel to help coordinate the travel needs of families and tourists.
“Sometimes people are panicking and they may not know about these things,” Avigado said. “They need help. They need someone to guide them. So we’ve put a couple of officers on the ground to help them with anything they need.”
Uri “Buri” Jeremias, owner of the Efendi hotel and restaurant of the same name in the northwestern city of Akure, is keeping his restaurant open with a skeleton staff to help stranded tourists, families and essential workers.
“During times like these, people need nutrition and care,” Jeremias said. “Food goes a long way.”
In Gaza, no one can believe their eyes
Like many in the hospitality industry, Jeremias has spent the past few years trying to rebuild his business, first the pandemic and then, in May 2021, a series of violent incidents in which a mob set fire to his hotel and restaurant, seen as a symbol of coexistence with its mixed Arab and Jewish staff.
“Unfortunately, Israelis are used to this kind of situation,” said Pini Shani, deputy director general and head of marketing at Israel’s Tourism Ministry.
He believes tourism in Israel will return to “normal” as soon as the fighting ends, perhaps because Israel has stronger appeal than typical holiday destinations.
“The fact that religious communities, both Christian and Jewish, visit Israel in large numbers gives us the advantage of being able to bounce back quickly after a crisis,” Shani said.
That’s what brought Mason to Israel, where his group partnered with Mejidi Tours to support an interfaith trip led by Mason, a Baptist pastor and Rabbi Nancy Kasten.
The socially conscious tour company takes people into conflict zones to explain the context of complex issues. They often pair groups with two guides who represent opposing sides. In Northern Ireland, for example, clients travel with both a Catholic and a Protestant guide; in Washington, they’re shown around by a Republican and a Democratic guide.
On trips to Israel and the Palestinian territories, travelers accompanied by Israeli and Palestinian guides “meet refugees, soldiers, human rights activists,” said Aziz Abu Salah, 43, a Palestinian peace activist who co-founded Mejidi Tours about 15 years ago. “You meet diplomats, right-wingers, left-wingers, bilateralists, unilateralists.”
Salah, who previously served as executive director of the Center on World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University, said when he started Mejidi he saw it as “a new way to engage with Israelis and Palestinians” rather than a business opportunity.
But Sara said he had a “very anti-peaceful” upbringing before becoming an activist and eventually working in the tourism industry.
“I’m Palestinian. My brother was killed by Israeli soldiers,” he said. “Maybe 30 years ago I would have celebrated this, but now I can’t, because these are my friends. These are people you know.”
“We just keep trying to bounce back.”
Working in a conflict-prone area, Mejidi has always been contingency-conscious and has a crisis plan, Salah said. When the unrest began, there were six ground tours, including one for 50 people, Salah said. Many airlines canceled flights to Israel, making it impossible to depart from Tel Aviv airport, so Mejidi arranged for vehicles to transport people out of rocket range.
Some passengers stayed in the area to resume their journey, while others flew home from Jordan, including Mason’s group, which ended up in Tiberias, an Israeli city on the shores of Sea of Galilee about 100 miles north of Jerusalem.
Currently, all of Mejidi’s tours in Israel and Gaza have been canceled until at least the end of this month.
Not every company has followed suit, and Sarah knows some groups are still touring, either out of a sense of obligation to their customers (“It’s a pilgrimage for some people,” she says) or out of necessity.
“We’ve had this for three years now and this is happening. I think a lot of people are thinking, ‘Can I survive this financially?'” Sarah said.
Baum knows that feeling. “It feels like there’s no rest,” she said. “It just keeps getting kicked down and we just keep trying to get back up.”
She’s not sure how she’ll continue to pay her staff if the situation remains unstable, and Delicious Israel hopes some guests will accept credits for future tours rather than refunds.
In Israel and Gaza, people are preparing for a long and costly war
Shani said the issue of emergency aid for the hospitality industry was “very complex” but he was “confident the government will find a way to help them”.
Baum is less optimistic.
“There are a lot of industries that need funding right now,” she said. “I don’t think tourism is at the top of their list.”
