BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. (WXYZ) — The Jewish Federation of Detroit has been working hard getting metro Detroiters out of Israel as uncertainty looms with the war.
They recently got a group of high school and college students back home.
Watch the video report below:
“Just because you leave dangerous situations, a part of you is still there,” Aidan Fishkind said.
Fishkind is from Bloomfield Hills and goes to Elon University.
He traveled to Israel on June 2 to be a part of an internship coordinated by the Jewish Federation of Detroit.
“I’m not naive to the realities of the world in Israel, but I didn’t think of anything major happening. I figured I was going at a time where people were finally feeling a bit more comfortable in their travels too,” Fishkind said.
A little more than two weeks of Fishkind being in Israel, a missile hit the city he was in.
Fishkind and other students in his program had to go into a bomb shelter.
“As loud as it is, you feel the vibrations more than you hear it,” Fishkind said.
Once tensions between Israel and Iran escalated, it was decided the students had to be taken home, but it couldn’t be by plane, so they had to take a boat to Cypress, another country in the Middle East.
“There was no internet on the boat and it was stressing me out because I wanted to tell my parents that I was OK because I had been in constant contact with them,” Fishkind said.
Fishkind's father, Adam, says he and his wife were glued to the TV watching the news as things unfolded.
“It was terrifying. It’s still makes me nervous to think about. You have such little control and feel very helpless,” Adam Fishkind said.
Aidan Fishkind made it back home to Bloomfield Hills this past Sunday, thanks to the efforts of the Jewish Federation of Detroit.
David Kurzman from the federation says it was their top priority to make sure students like Aidan Fishkind were safe.
"We send people to Israel knowing that they're going to have incredibly meaningful experiences, and we also know that we have people there to help keep them safe,” Kurzman said.
Meanwhile for Aidan Fishkind, he says he's still processing what he went through.
“We only had to live this for a couple of days; people live this for their entire lives,” Aidan Fishkind said.
If you know someone stuck in Israel, the federation is encouraging you to contact them.
