LANDINGS

Nov 4, 2004

By BARBARA SOFER

Exploring the grand new Terminal Three at Ben Gurion Airport last week, I was dogged by an unanticipated feeling of moroseness which wasn�t quite offset by the thrill of sweeping expanses of glass and concrete, the alluring shopping, or the promise of flying without hauling hand luggage down and up precipitous staircases.

Then I realized I was experiencing a sense of loss for that old homely but familiar Terminal One.  A renovated adaptation of an old British edifice,  Terminal One didn�t boast a single aesthetic element-nothing like the enchanted fountain and six-pointed shopping star of Terminal Three. It was pure utility.  Nonetheless, who of us doesn�t feel nostalgia for the scene of so many romantic moments, both in our personal lives and our national existence? There�s a Terminal One moment in most of us.

Ben Gurion Airport, aka Lod, became the major gateway into our new state, and its pulchritude was irrelevant. The scarred memories of being forcibly kept out by the British always prevented us from taking for granted our comings and goings.  Then our government imposed stiff exit taxes.. Travel was such a luxury that the words for going abroad, �hutz l�aretz� were uttered with reverence. At last, the barriers came down, and we became passionate, ubiquitous if obstreperous tourists, traveling because we could, traveling to take a breather from the confinement and weightiness of life in an intense nation the size of New Jersey.  Entire countries seemed to be overtaken by colonies of Israeli families and youngsters, as we discovered bazaars on the Bosphorus, bargain balneology in Bratislava, backpacking in Bhagsu. You�d meet these fellow Israelis in the tight quarters of Terminal I and later Terminal II, the no-frills charter flight launch pad, dispelling any notion that flying was for a privileged few. We were newly mobile and urbane.

If the departures were liberating, �head cleaners� we called them, the arrivals were always more gripping. First there were images of Golda Meir and David Ben Gurion returning from fundraising and diplomatic trips abroad. The legendary Magic Carpet brought Yemenite Jews in striped cassocks and curled sidelocks. Sophia Lauren landed in dark sunglasses; Frank Sinatra was all smiles. Anwar Sadat stepped out of an airplane and changed history. 800,000 former Soviet immigrants walked down those airplane stairs in winter jackets, so many toting violins.   Ethiopian Jews  donned their Sabbath white clothing for the ultimate pilgrimage to Jerusalem. We cheered the planes of rescued Jews from Entebbe. Returnees from Mombassa, escorted from terror and missile attack by Israeli fighter jets, deplaned at the old terminal.  The hot asphalt retained its enchantment,  eliciting spontaneous kisses from immigrants and tourists alike, moved by their first footstep in land of their forefathers and foremothers, the dreamed of return of the people of Israel for thousands of years. At the festive opening night, President Moshe Katzav was among the speakers who recalled the thrill of his own arrival as immigrant, as many of us recall our own.

That old terminal was also the setting of terror. There were the two attacks in May, 1972. The first was aboard the Belgian Sabena airline with two future Prime Ministers amidst the commandos who defeated Black September there. Then, as odd as it seems three decades later-only three weeks after Sabena,  Kozo Okamoto and the Japanese Red Brigade attacked pilgrims from Puerto Rico in the terminal. Those were times when a passenger could board a plane with a semi-automatic rifle inside an attach� case. How far we have come to times when tweezers are confiscated.

Since then, we�ve taught ourselves and the world about security.  But despite the grilling from our homegrown agents, we lugged soup nuts in one direction and came back with English muffins, never  sure if we should admit to carrying anything for anyone. After all, not so long ago you could still buy duty free Swiss army knives on board our planes.

In Israel, legions of greeters always waited in the airport, breaking through security. Visitors weren�t just coming to Israel. They were coming home. Deplaning were siblings separated for decades, grandmas reaching out for the first touch of a generation they weren�t sure would be ever born, college kids claiming their birthright on free trips, Christian tourists who believed in the Holy Land, too.

soon bond with the new terminal to make it ours.  I don�t care that it�s late and that it wasn�t, as anticipated, a crowning achievement of a time of booming tourism and industry. Like the entire enterprise we call the State of Israel, it is a vote of confidence that the future will be better.

The first flights left Terminal Three on the November 2, exactly 87 years after Arthur James Balfour expressed His Majesty�s Government�s declaration of sympathy with the �Jewish Zionists� and �their aspiration of Statehood.�  The greeting hall is gigantic-the expression of our oversized anticipation for the millions of friends and family to join us in the greatest experiment of our times.

On Yom Kippur we prayed, �Open up a gateway.� 500 mezuzot hang in the portals. Voila! Terminal Three is open.