Dr. Dan Gottlieb and grandson Sam floating on the Dead Sea during a trip to Israel. Israel’s hot summer climate and the country’s many cobblestoned streets are among the factors making travelling to the Jewish homeland difficult for those with physical challenges. Israel is making more tourist sites and accommodations available to the disabled, but careful planning is still needed.

If you ask Dr. Dan Gottlieb if Israel is accessible, he’ll tell you, “It’s accessible enough.” He participated in two recent Cong. M’kor Shalom trips to Israel that were planned by Merle Steinberg, the synagogue’s education director.

“I had a wonderful, terrific time,” said Gottlieb, a psychologist, radio host, and columnist who was paralyzed from the chest down as a result of a 1979 auto accident. “She [Steinberg] did such extensive planning to accommodate me,” he added. “I got to see almost everything. I saw the desert and slept in a Bedouin camp, I saw Eilat. I took a jeep ride, and stayed at a fully accessible kibbutz on the Kinneret.”

Marshall Baker proudly stands between an IDF jeep and a Magen David Adom (Israeli Red Cross) ambulance. “Every decision I made for the trips that included Dan had to have accessibility,” Steinberg explained. Whether something in Israel is truly accessible verses what they call accessible is complicated by the fact that accessibility is not universal in definition. Some discrepancies are easily remedied; others can’t be resolved.

Steinberg explained, “Imagine a tour group has reservations at a restaurant that says we are accessible. Now imagine the meal consists of a gorgeous Israeli buffet spread upon tables in an area of the dining room that is actually inaccessible to someone in a wheelchair because it requires descending stairs. Just three steps to get to the buffet means they’ll never see the buffet or select their own food. If a wheelchair is just two and a half inches wider than the hotel says the room door measures, these little things make life even more challenging.”

Elaine Pomrantz coordinates tourism for individuals with special physical needs through Yad Sarah, one of Israel’s largest volunteer organizations. “I try to help them overcome their fears, talk about the issues, and encourage what people want to accomplish. I can suggest accommodations, accessible sites, trails, and hikes,” explained Pomrantz.

Gilah Lewis Sietz, a staff member for the Katz JCC Adult Dept., has led three JCC trips to Israel, accommodating her travelers’ special needs. The average age on her trips was 70, and the participants were often visiting Israel for the first time. “We go north, south, east, and west, do a community service project, go to Eilat, and have an optional trip to Petra, Jordan. Our day starts at 8:30 a.m., and we’re back in our hotel by 6:30 at night,” she said in describing the trips.

Marshall and Harriet Baker took a trip with Sietz five years ago. Paralyzed on one side, and with only 50% of his eyesight as the result of a stroke, Marshall Baker was the youngest of the travelers with special physical needs. “Without a trip that was designed with the needs of someone using a cane or wheelchair in mind, provided help to get off and on the bus, and having alternative routes to avoid cobblestone streets, he could never have experienced Israel,” said Harriet Baker. “There was such a great level of caring and planning,” she added.

Pomrantz, who volunteers her time as Yad Sarah’s tourism coordinator, is mobile with the help of a motorized wheelchair. “I started my connection to Yad Sarah as a tourist in 1981 during my first trip to Israel,” she explained. Pomrantz visited Israel 18 times before she made aliyah. She can be contacted at: tourism@yadsarah.org.il

Gottlieb’s Israel experiences provided tremendous memories for himself and his family. “I was there with my grandson Sam and his parents, and I was having a great time being with Sam. We got to the Dead Sea, and I wanted to go in with Sam. My fellow travelers lifted me out of my wheelchair and put me in a cheap plastic lounge chair that they carried down to the sea. They removed the chair and stood in a circle around us as I floated in the Dead Sea, weightless for the first time in more than 30 years. That wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been in the bosom of a loving caring community,” he said. “My trip to Israel wasn’t just seeing the land, but about Jews, and what we do for each other.” .