New London — The Jewish Federation of Eastern Connecticut canceled a trip to Israel on Sunday due to concerns about the coronavirus.
Trip organizer and former JFEC Executive Director Jerry Fischer said the group canceled the trip around 5 a.m., shortly before eight people were scheduled to leave for a 6 p.m. flight from New York.
Fischer said the trip was canceled for three reasons. One was negotiations taking place between Israel and the United States regarding possible self-imposed quarantines on Israelis returning from New York, California and Washington state, as reported by Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper. Fischer said he feared Israel wouldn’t allow Americans into Israel from New York without quarantining them.
“The second issue was it sounded to me like Israel was closing down,” Fischer said. “Some of the sites we wanted to see would not be open to us. I didn’t want to bring a group to Israel and slowly have everything we had planned to do get closed off, including some restaurants that we were going to take them to.”
The third reason revolved around the White House apparently overruling health officials who wanted to recommend that elderly and physically fragile Americans be advised not to fly on commercial airlines because of the new coronavirus, according to The Associated Press.
The CDC has advised older adults to stay home as much as possible, and Vice President Mike Pence said on Saturday, “If you’re a senior citizen with a serious underlying health condition, this would be a good time to practice common sense and to avoid activities including traveling on a cruise line.”
Fischer said members of the group that was set to travel are elderly.
JFEC Executive Director Carin Savel said she didn’t want to put the people on the trip at risk.
“Health, safety and security are the premier concerns of the Jewish Federation, and we take no chances,” she said. “We had several people going on this trip who’d never been to Israel before, and this is not the way to see Israel for the first time.”
Fischer said he has spent the better part of a year organizing the visit, so the decision to cancel was a difficult one. He’s unsure of the financial impact to the JFEC and the would-be travelers at the moment. He and Savel said they hope to postpone the trip until the fall, “and if that doesn’t happen, for sure next spring,” Fischer added.
The purpose of the trip is twofold: to see the tourist highlights of Israel, and “to have encounters with all sorts of Israelis,” Fischer said. “I mean Jewish Israelis, both orthodox and secular, Arab-Christian Israelis, Arab-Muslim Israelis, everyone.”
The itinerary included five museums with tours from museum curators.
Fischer said he has organized more than 28 trips of this nature.
“I’ve brought groups to Israel in the middle of massive terrorist attacks,” Fischer said. “I don’t think I’ve ever canceled a trip to Israel. I was defeated by a virus.”