Ever play Super Mario Brothers? When you beat the game – which few of us do (including me) you rejoice at having spent only seven hours getting to the end. This is comparable to some arrivals at the airport until you actually board a plane going through level after level. With a ‘famous’ trick on Level 4-2, the world record speed run for Super Mario Brothers is under 5 minutes!

I have begun the speed run challenge at Tel Aviv airport and there is a lot of time to shave off of this first attempt. The record (since I started keeping records) is exactly 30 minutes from arrival at TLV airport Terminal 3 until you board an international flight.

Challenge 1: What’s an alarm?

Goal: Be at the gate to board the plane at 4:45am.
Problem: First time I set an alarm since making aliyah.

Working nights and being a natural morning riser, I haven’t set an alarm to wake up early in over a year. El Al has direct flights to Marseilles though they leave at the satanical hour of 5:25am. The plan – meet my son in France. He’s still living in America and calls this a compromise place to meet.

4:00am: Wake up suddenly look at the clock. Crickey. “alarm silenced in due not disturb mode”.
4:45am: Boarding begins. (I don’t remember that)

Split second decisions:

1) Don’t look at the boarding pass. If I know when boarding is, I’ll probably not try to get on the plane.
2) Don’t use wife’s toothbrush (mine is packed) – just mouthwash.
3) Pre-prepared clothing … buttons on shirt aren’t all buttoned. Grab a different shirt.
4) Run.

Challenge 2: Driving to the Airport

Instead of cops and speed traps, Israel designs roads to ride slower. This time only one red light paused me between my house and the airport. Apparently, they only change colors if a car is detected.

On a prior vacation with a last-minute rebook out of Hartford, CT, the guy I paid to drive us in my car taught me “the inners and outers” … road turning left, get in the left lane. Road turning right, get in the right lane. This makes your drive shorter. How much shorter? Well, you have negative seconds to spare, best to have less of them.

Challenge 3: Get In the Airport

4:28am: Arrive at the airport.

Security guard, “is everything okay?” Yes, yes, I’m just very late … and he lets me go.

Fun fact about Ben Gurion airport: long term parking is 50 shekels a day. Short term is 100 shekels per day. Short term parking is maximum one day … unless it’s before June 15th. So … glad I read up on that beforehand.

Short term parking is not where I remembered it. I’m on floor one. I go down instead of up … which would bring me to arrivals. Okay, elevator. I press “G” … why isn’t it going up?

Oh cut me some slack readers … I just woke up.

~~Ground floor~~ – Arrivals Floor 3:
“Hi – I’m super late – can I go in?”
“Any bags to check?”
“No.”
“Go to line Q.”

Challenge 4: Security Checks

I’m changing some facts and things for security purposes though this gives you an idea of what you can and can’t do to speed through Tel Aviv airport.

No idea where line Q is, so I walk through to the X-rays where they scan your bags. I convince a lady who doesn’t seem to speak any language at all to let me cut the line in Business Class and … they ask to see my passport. “You didn’t go through security. Go back.”

“I’m a middle aged American white guy. I’m not a threat.”
“You skipped the security line, so you are.”

True story: a relative of mine came to visit and didn’t feel like waiting on a huge security line and so she didn’t. When she left the country, they said they had no record that she was in the country and got a nice interrogation on the way out. Still, in aggregate, it saved time.

Back to line Q … with my bags. I cut another line … for some reason someone else had to be called over and shown my boarding pass … then they let me go with the last words being, “Run!”.

This time I’m not allowed to skip the X-ray line for business class … I go back to the woman who speaks no language at all that said I could … she gets me through.

No passport check. How did they know to ask the previous time? Additional biometric checks? Eye in the sky watching me?

One person in front of me for the X-ray machine … line isn’t moving. Someone is trying to bring on what looks like a huge rolled up carpet that doesn’t fit through the machine. Sefer Torah inside, maybe? The only guy between the rolled-up carpet and me … won’t let me go ahead of him. After the scan, he won’t move out of the way so I can get my luggage. His was held back. My hand luggage, for some reason, comes out after some others.

Phone buzzes … text message from my cellular company offering me data abroad for about $60 a week! So intrusive! Must you know where I am? An American would complain about such an intrusion of privacy … except … yeah, cellular companies in America also know where your phone is. They just don’t make you think about that. I guess it’s better that Israel tells you it’s being intrusive.

Challenge 4: Passport Check

Put my passport on the scanner, get my photo taken … “go to border control”. What now? Try it again … “Dude, I said go to border control.” “Please, please?” “No, go to border control now!”

I know where the border control office is – a previous time a child ran through when not her turn and then the gate wouldn’t let me through. The officer delayed me with questions about whether my child was safe and I just needed to get to my plane (which … was, come to think of it, also already during boarding time). (She was with her mother.)

The previous time, some guy argued about paying his overdue fines before they’d let him leave the country. This time I was waiting for another oleh (new immigrant) explain that he didn’t have a biometric ID card yet because he couldn’t get an appointment for a while. Yeah, that’s another can of fun.

I get pushy and some airport attendant lady assures me kindly that I got this far and the plane won’t leave without me. That was really calming even now when I think about it.

The “not-a-passport” passport that new olim in Israel get for their first year

The problem: I had my American passport and not my “Teudat Avar” which is one year not-quite-a-passport, passport that new olim (immigrants) get for their first year. Apparently, Russians were gaming the system … getting their immigrant money and passport to escape Russia …and then not returning to Israel (or Russia). An Israeli passport is better than a Russian one!

Why didn’t I bring my “Teudat Avar” with me? Well, Israel is allowing people to travel with foreign passports until the end of 2025. So I read. In truth, my wife has my Teudat Avar because she needs it with her to get them for my daughters (unless I’m present, and – this appointment took months to get so I left it with her). I show my Teudat Zehut (government ID) and he lets me through.

That is the difference between what the rules are and what’s in practice.
The rule: “Israeli citizen needs to enter and leave the country with Israeli passport.”
The exception: “… unless it’s in the year 2025.”
The rule: “Not actually. You have an Israel travel document, so you have to use it.”
The exception: “Okay, you didn’t bring it … you can go.”

So … once getting done with multiple “not” statements (e.g. “you can not not not leave the country with your American passport”) it seems you can … just don’t because you shouldn’t.

Back to the passport scanner – still not accepting it.

Back to border control room.
“You’re supposed to go through the middle, not to the scanners.”

The last time this happened I was told to “go around the side” and there were no checks – nothing. Seemed they closed that route because it was too easy to just walk around. This time there was a guy checking in the middle.

Challenge 5: Most Direct Path to the Gate

Okay, sure … of course. So late the gate is not on the display anymore and it’s not on my pre-printed boarding pass.

I still have 10 minutes of boarding time left. There’s an information booth … no time for Hebrew. Where’s my gate?

She calls someone. She tells me C-7.

Want to guess where gate C-7 is? Well, there are three hallways to the gates, 1) left, 2) right, 3) around a central circle with tables, chairs, and loiters.

Mine gate was around the central circle.

I booked it down the middle, finding what should be a walkway through. Three loitering women chatting away in this path … “slicha! slicha!” (excuse me, excuse me …). I’m through!

“Sir, you booked it and your books didn’t!”

So embarrassing. There I am running through – all is well and then … they must have opened by hand luggage before the X-ray, and I hadn’t noticed!

Out falls Les Misérables (I’m going to France! – received from the “free book exchange” in my neighborhood before I planned to go France).
Out falls my siddur.
Out falls a $10 bill.

I grab them up, zipper the bag … enough.

Run. Run. Run. You know where gate C-7 is? At the very end of the hallway – the last gate – where airports prefer to put planes. It is as far as possibly could be.

Time now: 5:08am.
Boarding closes: 5:10am.

Time to beat from airport arrival until getting on the plane: 30 minutes, exactly.

… and that, my dear readers, is what the first speed run through Tel Aviv airport is like. So many places to shave off time. This could have been lowered to 20 minutes, easily.

(This is not an endorsement to speed run through any airport.)

The Entire Aliyah Diary

Arrival

01. Aug 19, 2024: Preparation In America
02. Aug 25, 2024: First Few Days
03. Aug 29, 2024: Moving In
62. July 17, 2025: I MADE IT

Cultural Adjustment Fun

Cultural Adjustment Difficulties

On The Roads

Shopping

11. Oct 13, 2024: Packages. (חבילות.)
34. Feb 17, 2025: Finding Obscure Things
41. Mar 23, 2025: New Shopping Habits
44. Apr 6, 2025: Pesach Shopping & Osher Ad

Government and Bureaucracy

Politics and Thought

Travel: South Israel

Travel: Central/North Israel

Travel: From Israel to …

54. June 4, 2025: Marseille and Avignon