Hot Meals and Warm Jewish Spirit Uplift Stranded Passengers in Barcelona

After technical delays forced a Norwegian airline traveling from Israel to New York to land in Barcelona, Spain, more than 100 passengers found themselves stranded with nothing to eat. The passengers, returning from the Sukkot holiday in the Holy Land, had already experienced a delayed departure. Many of them, kosher consumers, and unable to to exit the airport without visas, left many adults and children had run out of food. “The passengers and their families reached out to us after eleven o’clock p.m. when their food supply had run out and there were no departing flights in sight,” Rabbi Dovid Libersohn, director of Chabad of Barcelona, Spain, told Lubavitch.com. Staff and volunteers at the Chabad kitchen and the local Maccabee restaurant cooked and packed 120 fresh kosher meals and brought them to the grateful travelers. 

Thankfully, most of the passengers have now made it home via other countries and airlines. Around forty of them will remain in Barcelona for Shabbat, spending it with the Chabad community.

“We are happy they knew to reach out to Chabad,” says Libersohn. “We aren’t caterers but this delivery came from our belief in our mission to help Jews spiritually and also physically.” He says he only hopes that in the future, people engage with Chabad and support their activities before they need their help. 

People needn’t wait for a crisis, he insists. “Stop by, learn more about your heritage, don Tefillin, and study some Torah. We may provide kosher food but that’s just a result of the Jewish living and learning we aim to promote.”