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Amy Bressman helps an Israeli child with tefillin.

Tourists Return

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With security situation improved,
tourists return to Israel in force.

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Tel Aviv

apelling down Judean Desert
mountain faces, bumping along
dirt roads by jeep and tucking
notes into the Western Wall in
Jerusalem, tourists have returned to
Israel for winter vacation in the largest
numbers since the Palestinian intifada
began more than four years ago.
The perception that Israel is safer than
it was a year ago, and renewed hopes for
peace in the wake of Palestinian
Authority President Yasser Arafat's death,
are playing their part in luring tourists
back, tourism officials and trip organiz-
ers said.
"During the intifada, you literally
begged people to come, and now people
are begging you to get on the trip," said
Marlene Post, president of Hadassah
International and chairwoman of
Birthright Israel in North America.
She was in Israel helping oversee three
Hadassah missions that came for winter
break.
Across the board, more tourists are
coming — Jewish and Christian, stu-
dents and families, part of an overall
surge in tourism in 2004. Some 1.4 mil-

lion tourists were expected to in Israel by
the end of 2004, a 44 percent increase
over last year.
"The increase in tourism and the opti-
mistic outlook for 2005 can be attrib-
uted to an increasingly positive atmos-
phere in the region, an improvement in
the security situation and the renewal of
intensive marketing efforts around the
world," Tourism Ministry spokesman
Golan Yossifon said.
Among the visitors were a group of
127 from New York City's Park Avenue
Synagogue, one of the largest synagogue
missions to Israel since the intifada
began
Throughout the year the synagogue
focused its congregation on Israel —
revamping its religious school curricu-
lum to put Israel at center stage, hosting
festivals of Israeli art and film and host-
ing lectures.
The climax was climbing on a plane
and exploring "the complexities of Israel
for eight days," said Paul Corwin, a syn-
agogue member and lawyer who organ-
ized the December trip.
Their first stop was cheering in the
stands at a professional basketball game
in Tel Aviv, while their last was a tour of
the hall where David Ben-Gurion

.

TOURISTS on page 28

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