ATID is the Jewish Federation of Greater Indianapolis advanced leadership program. Part of every ATID class is a trip to Israel. These are accounts from the partcipants of ATID IV, who are traveling through Israel in February 2016.

Post written by Marta Lederer

And so it begins at some unG-dly hour. We were told to be at the airport by 7:30 a.m. for our 9:55 a.m. flight. We all forgot that we were in Indianapolis and the airport would be empty. We made the best of it and enjoyed the gourmet flavors of the Indianapolis airport. We boarded our extremely warm flight to Newark, NJ. The flight was pretty smooth until we hit the high winds right before landing. Most of us landed feeling a bit queasy, but ready for our adventure. As we still had a few hours before our flight to Israel, we decided to again explore the foods of the airport. What else are a group of Jews to do besides eat?

As with all good flights to Israel, ours began with a group of men davening. Jeff Sondhelm even decided to wrap tefillin just to make sure we didn't stand out and Megan Maurer said the travelers prayer for all of us.

Our flight to Israel began with a two-hour delay due to internal communication issues, whatever that means. After the slight delay, our flight took off and was a fairly smooth ride. Most people slept for a few hours which helped make the flight go a little quicker. We were excited to finally arrive in Israel!​