Four days before nine Israeli Arab high school students from the Galilee and their chaperone were to arrive Aug. 9 for two weeks in Dayton, their trip was postponed until next year. With heightened tensions and threats of retaliation from Iran and Hezbollah after Israel’s assassinations of top Hamas military and political leaders in July, Delta Airlines cancelled its flights in and out of Israel until September.

“The kids were booked on Delta,” said Dr. Marti Moody Jacobs of Washington Township, who, since 2007 has facilitated eight such trips with Israeli Arab students from the Galilee. It’s the culmination of a summer English language program for Israeli Arab students in the Galilee taught by Dayton-area volunteers on alternating years. The program is funded through private donations.

“I talked to Delta people for days, and they tried to be helpful and find other flights out, but there wasn’t anything,” Jacobs said. “A group of 10, it’s hard to move them. I’ve texted all the students and they’re all very gracious and excited to come next summer. And one of the girls said, ‘Oh, don’t feel too bad. Nobody can get out of the country now.'”

JTA has reported that United Airlines suspended service to Israel indefinitely and that American Airlines has also canceled its flights until April 2025.

The students live in the villages of Sakhnin and Kaukab. “None of them have been to the U.S. before,” Jacobs said. “They don’t have relatives in the U.S. They were very excited.”

Their itinerary included visits to essentially every site worth seeing in southwest Ohio, meetings with local social justice leaders and University of Dayton international students, producing and editing their own videos at DATV, a movement/acting class at the Human Race Theatre Company, a SWAT team demonstration, and a Dragons game.

“We do all these educational things, and they had a list of things they also wanted to do here: Five Guys, beach volleyball, a drive-in movie. Surfing, we told them no, they couldn’t do that here. It’s really sweet.”

What to do with all the food Jacobs prepared for the guests, hosts, and other program volunteers?

“I cook a lot, and I now find myself with a freezer stuffed with food for the group that was coming in. So I’m changing the group’s farewell dinner into a ‘forward’ dinner for everyone here involved with the program.”

— Marshall Weiss

To read the complete September 2024 Dayton Jewish Observer, click here.