Joseph Wisher of Kalispell made a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Israel and was there during the beginning of the Gaza conflict between Israel and Hamas.

The experience has changed his perspective on life.

The 18-year-old Flathead High School graduate was afforded a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a free educational trip exploring sites of historic, cultural and religious significance in Judaism through URJ Kesher and Taglit-Birthright Israel. 

Wisher hadn’t thought about traveling to the country until a relative contacted him about the program for young adults. 

Wisher applied and wrote two essays. He thought it was too good to be true when he was accepted.

“To be honest, until I was at the airport, it didn’t feel like I was actually going,” Wisher said. 

On June 29 a group of about 40 participants departed for Tel Aviv, Israel.

During the 10-day trip, Wisher looked up at the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem, floated in the Dead Sea (the lowest point on earth), hiked the mountain fortress of Masada traveled the Judean Desert to the Ein Gedi oasis, took a boat ride on the Sea of Galilee and enjoyed the city life of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem’s Ben Yahuda Street.

One of Wisher’s favorite parts of the trip was riding camels.

“I was really excited to ride the camel,” Wisher said.

Their destination was to the Dead Sea, one of the world’s saltiest bodies of water.

“You physically cannot sink,” Wisher said. “We’d stand straight up and you wouldn’t even bob.”

During the trip the group dined on shwarma, similar to a gyro; falafel, deep-fried balls of chickpeas and fava beans; kabobs, which he described as like a meat roll; hummus and chicken schnitzel.

Toward the end of his trip, the reality of Israel’s tumultuous history sank in with the start of the Gaza conflict.

“Toward the end it got real with the Gaza bombings and I was there when it started,” Wisher said.

“I remember being at the hostel and we got the news that Gaza had fired 85 rockets or missiles at us. It wasn’t really scary. It wasn’t real yet. I didn’t see it. I was just hearing it on the news.”

The next day the group was having dinner in Tel Aviv when people in his group said they heard air raid sirens go off and the Iron Dome had shot down a missile. The Iron Dome is Israel’s missile defense system.

“The area was declared unsafe for tourists, so we went back to Jerusalem,” Wisher said.

Now he was starting to be a little on edge, yet he couldn’t see or hear any air strikes and only heard of them secondhand.

“We went back to Ben Yahuda Street for a second time and I remember sitting on the street at a restaurant. There were four of us and the siren went off. It sounded like a police car and didn’t really click. It’s a busy street. Then, all of a sudden people were getting up and running into buildings,” Wisher said.

The small group followed suit.

“I remember looking at the TV screens watching Hamas launching rockets at us and watching the Iron Dome shoot the rockets down,” Wisher said. “It was really scary because they would shoot the rockets off and then you just watch and just hope — you know — they get shot down. You just sit there really stressing out that one’s going to land and then it gets shot down. And we’re, ‘OK, we’re good,’ then three more come up.”

Wisher recalled that around day seven or eight, they were traveling to the Mediterranean Sea when the bus pulled over after air raid sirens went off and for the first time Wisher heard them.

“You could hear the rockets explode when the Iron Dome shot them out of the sky,” Wisher said. 

“Being from Montana, I’ve been around guns. I’ve been around Tannerite [exploding rifle targets] and pretty big fireworks. That’s like a three [on a scale to 10] compared to what I was experiencing.”

For the first time on the trip, fear crept in.

“I wasn’t showing it, but on the inside it was not the most comfortable experience,” Wisher said.

Wished was asked if he felt his life was ever in real danger during the trip. 

“No, just because of all the precautions our group took,” Wisher replied, noting that their guides were receiving orders from a tourist command center, which received information from the government. “I felt safe with our tour guides taking us, but at the same time I can hear the rockets.”

For a majority of the trip, the group was accompanied by Israeli soldiers as part of a cultural exchange rather than security. The soldiers were in the same age range as the tourists, 18 to 22, and weren’t in uniform or carrying weapons.

On the flight home the plane was delayed. It wasn’t until later that Wisher learned the reason for the delay.

“We didn’t find out until after we were delayed 40 minutes on the plane because Hamas fired rockets at the airport,” Wisher said. “We found out on the news.”

The experience has opened his eyes.

“I came back here and little things aren’t an issue. I just saw how people lived there with all this bombing,” Wisher said, noting that American tourists stood out for their heightened reactions of the bombings compared to the locals who were used to it. 

Wisher said he was glad to have made the trip. Wisher hopes his group will win a free reunion during an online competition.

“It was definitely a great experience. I have made so many cool friends on the trip and I keep in touch with them,” Wisher said.

In the fall, Wisher will attend Montana State University-Bozeman to pursue a degree in business.

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or by email at [email protected].