Jerusalem – El Al will be flying Pope Benedict XVI and his entourage from the Holy Land back to Rome on May 15, when his historic visit to Jordan, the Palestinian-controlled areas and Israel ends.
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The special flight from Ben-Gurion Airport to Rome will be on a Boeing 777 that will bear the Vatican logo.
Benedict plans to visit the region from May 8-15, stopping first in Jordan. He will arrive in Israel on May 11.
The pontiff’s trip will include visits to the Western Wall and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, as well as Jesus’s birthplace in Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the site on the Jordan River where, according to tradition, Jesus was baptized. He will conduct a mass in the Galilee and spend his last day here praying at various holy sites in Jerusalem.
The pope is expected to be accompanied by an entourage of 30 clergy and 70 journalists.
“Israel’s national carrier El Al is proud to be chosen to serve the pope and his entourage on his historic visit to Israel and to offer the delegation a special flight back home,” Haim Romano, El Al’s director-general, said on Sunday.
“We are preparing to offer all the services needed for the pilgrimage tourism that is expected to follow the pope’s visit,” Romano added.
El Al, its subsidiary Sun D’or, and the Tourism Ministry are looking to use the pope’s visit to attract Catholic pilgrims from around the world, particularly from South America. El Al is launching direct flights to and from Brazil in May.
Meanwhile, Israel’s ambassador to the Holy See, H.E. Mordechay Lewy, issued a statement clarifying that during the pope’s next visit to the Western Wall, “the same procedure that was applied in the papal visit of the year 2000 will be valid.”
“The Israeli host will respect, as a matter of course, the religious symbols of the Holy Father and of his entourage, as expected in accordance with rules of hospitality and dignity,” he said. “This was confirmed to a high official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Jerusalem personally by Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, who is responsible for worship matters at the Western Wall.”
The statement said the clarification was deemed necessary after The Jerusalem Post published “a misleading quotation [by] the rabbi” that it was not proper to come to the site wearing a cross.
“My position is that it is not fitting to enter the Western Wall area with religious symbols, including a cross,” Rabinovitch told the Post last Monday. “I feel the same way about a Jew putting on a tallit and phylacteries and going into a church.”
In geheniom they will also have the privilage to sit together.
They may make him remove his Yarmuka!
of course they like him. id bet the pope doesnt makes a huge issue out of segregation and insist on a all male flight.
What a shame, this is the so called jewish land
I hope he realizes that when the El Al staff is super nasty to him, it is not because they dislike him or his religion– its because they are nasty to anyone who wears a yarmulka on his head. and everyone else for that matter.
Great comment #6 couldn’t agree with you more!! What a bunch of disgusting ppl working those flights
Is he going to eat the regular El Al food or does he have special requirements?
To all you proud Zionists.. Here is the true face of your proud Israel air-lines.
He will find out the defenition of el al evry land allways late ha ha
for the last 2 years
7 flights
I only flew with continental they are super nice to the jews
I don’t know what you guys are complaining about. I fly El Al every month between NYC and Israel and thoroughly enjoy my flights. Maybe I am treated well because I don’t hang out with the chareidim.
Yemach Shemom what they are .Rabbi aryeh leibish teitelbaum zichrono livrooche they did not want to bring back from Mumbai but the pope they are proud to fly back
Its when I read posts on stories like these that clearly tell us how low we have stooped….. How can anyone not feel sick to his stomach when you know that in less than two months the ‘semel'(symbol) of tumah and hashchoso is coming to Eretz Yisroel of all places. How can any Erlicher Jew not feel sick to the stomach when hearing this.
#32 ..those are from the eruv rav’ see sirei chassidus
why are you all so supprised? the Zionists ‘never’ even tried to hide their face! not when Ben Gurion spent a ‘whole week’ in a Buddist Monastry, they have nothing at all to do with yiddishkeit, nothing at all. they say it openly! they never denied the fact that they are Mechalell Shabbos, that they eat Treifus. El Al flies on Shabbos.. (under their name or some other, but its still them..).
if the pope comes, let him come, but why give him a huge welcome? he repesents a relgion that is full of hate towards ours!
why would any Orthodox Jew defend the leaders of Israel, when the leaders themself are full of hate towards the Orthodox..
this is ridiculous. if anything happens to that flight and the pope is killed. israel and the jewish peopel will never hear the end of it. let the pope arrange his own pope flight back to italy. israel and el al should not be involved. its not a time to show off. let the pontiff find his own way back.
everyone is forgetting that according to out tradition just like when u enter a mosque and he WOULD remove his shoes i have no doubt
acc to our tradition u respect our tradition when u come and u do not advertize the trinity instead come as a humble man to the lord
people are SOO easily
forgettting their basic traditions in the face of a sumperimposed galoch
AGAIN I HAVE NO DOUBT that if the muslims asked him to take off his shoes or bow he most certainly would
The smartest comment from a political point of view was made by Rav Rabinovitch. Not the part about not wearing a cross at the kosel, but “I feel the same way about a Jew putting on a tallit and phylacteries and going into a church.” LOL Brilliant–he makes his point i a way that no one could possibly argue with. Of course, he meant that a Jew should never be going into a church at all, but it sounds like he’s looking out for the religious sensibilities of the church.