Yacov Amsalem’s business partner called from the United Kingdom and said, “We’re on the BBC!”
The news item was about stranded British vacationers in the Peruvian city of Cusco. They were complaining that the tiny country of Israel was sending planes to rescue Israelis while the Brits remained stranded as Peru went on lockdown.
Yet the complex extrication operation was not an Israeli government venture. Amsalem Tours facilitated the rescue of the Israeli backpackers. Founded 37 years ago by Amsalem, who is a pilot, today the Israeli tour operator has 450 employees and branches around the world.
Amsalem turned his 24-hour call center into an emergency hotline, fielding calls from Israeli mothers begging to bring their children home.
While El Al sent four jets to the Peruvian capital of Lima to bring home backpackers, hundreds of others were still stuck in Cusco. So Amsalem chartered four Airbus 320s and sent them to Cusco’s tiny airport, where the plan was to pick up the 550 waiting Israelis and fly them to the El Al jets in Lima.
However, with the country on lockdown, Peru’s government was not letting tourists into the capital. Amsalem leveraged every connection he had. The Israeli tourism minister and his Peruvian counterpart got involved, as did the Israeli ambassador in Lima. With white-knuckle timing, the mission was pulled off and the exhausted backpackers arrived in Lima and onto the awaiting El Al jets. Videos of the passengers singing “The whole world is a narrow bridge” as they landed in Israel went viral.
“It’s like the Yom Kippur War,” Amsalem said. His company also has a presence in China and he said during the height of the pandemic there, he offered for his Chinese employees to come to Israel until it was safe to return home, but they declined, saying, “A Chinese person gets treated in a hospital in China and an Israeli gets treated in Israel.”
“There’s no greater pleasure for me than to be part of this Zionism. Bringing people home.”
During difficult times, Amsalem said, people want to be home. “We understand that in times of sorrow, we need to come back to Israel and be together. There’s no greater pleasure for me than to be part of this Zionism. Bringing people home.”
And he hasn’t stopped yet. Amsalem Tours also brought home hundreds of stranded Israelis in Sao Paulo and in India. A nationwide curfew in India meant that Israelis couldn’t get to Delhi’s airport. Amsalem credits Israel’s ambassador to India, Ron Malka, for arranging a plane and organizing government-approved trucks to pick up Israelis from their guesthouses and transport them to the airport. “It was a torturous process but we obtained the necessary permits,” Amsalem said, adding, “It just goes to show, we are no longer a wandering people. We are a country with power in the world.”
For those who chose to stay in India, including Chabad emissaries, diplomats and some backpackers, the Air India flight did not return empty-handed. Amsalem Tours packed the returning plane to Delhi with matzo and other goods for the upcoming Passover holiday.
And for those who he managed to bring back to the Holy Land, Amsalem said, “The children of Israel are coming home.”
