Relaxing on the chaise lounges on the deck of the Crown Iris cruise ship, my daughter, Hadas, and I study the map of Syros. How can we make the best use of the eight hours we are scheduled to spend on this small Greek island with our party of eight?
We’re aiming for a tranquil day with a little touristy shopping and a few hours of swimming at one of the Blue Flag beaches. With abundant kosher lunch and dinner on the cruise ship, we happily don’t have to bring food.
Like most of the passengers on the Crown Iris, we are multi-generational: grandparents, parents, and grandchildren taking a four-day cruise. Many travelers are religiously observant, and a variety of prayer groups are always forming in or near the ship’s synagogue.
The youngest grandchild in our subset of offspring with us is 10, but many of our fellow travelers have ventured abroad with children in strollers.
We booked our tickets back on a rainy Hanukkah day in December, working around anticipated matriculation exam dates, summer camps, IDF furloughs, and, of course, avoiding the first nine days of the Hebrew month of Av. Even seven months in advance, some of the premier cabins were already taken, but I managed to lock in three eighth-floor rooms with windows and one more with a treasured balcony.
The Mano cruises have a lot going for them. Mordechai Mano, the company’s founder, moved to Israel from Greece’s thriving Thessaloniki port city in the 1930s. His son Moshe has since taken over. Mano Maritime used to operate simpler tourist boats, but in 2018, it purchased a luxurious ship, originally called the MS Birka Queen, built in Finland and christened in New York City in July 1992 by American actress Liza Minnelli.
Mano renovated the guest rooms and added restaurants (all kosher), a basketball court, and a water slide. The Crown Iris is a single cruise ship, not a fleet, but it has 750 cabins with a maximum capacity of 2000.
In addition to the cruises, voyages have been added to assist Israelis returning to Israel and tourists needing to leave while our airport was closed. You may have seen the ubiquitous photos of the Birthright Israel college kids on the ship’s pool deck, leaving Israel during the war with Iran.
The scheduled pleasure cruises are moderately priced, and best of all, you just grab your passport, take a train to the Haifa or Ashdod ports, and walk up the ramp to the 11-floor ship. With the evaporation of low-cost flight tickets and an increased desire to give Israeli children a break from more than a year and a half of war, the Crown Iris is fully booked this summer. We sailed out of Haifa among more than 1600 passengers.
The first port of call was Rhodes. The shopkeepers and restaurateurs welcomed us, eager to show off their Hebrew to enthusiastic customers, offering iced cappuccinos while selling silver jewelry and flowy tunics. A restaurant with a kosher certificate offering genuine Greek frozen yogurt immediately drew a large crowd on a 40⁰ day.
I expect an even warmer welcome in Syros, a much smaller island – it’s the 34th largest Greek island – with only 20,000 people and fewer tourists. Syros is part of the Cyclades, a group of islands southeast of mainland Greece, and one of the many islands that make up the Greek archipelago.
As we get closer to the port city of Ermoupoli, it looks sparsely inhabited with pretty white houses hugging the hillside. An interesting factoid of Syros’s history is that the island was briefly granted to the Jewish banker Joseph Nasi in the mid-16th century, reputedly “leading to a population increase.”
An odd announcement on the island website says that the weather is so hot that the local swimming pool is closed. Nonetheless, the beaches look appealing. Two proffered buses are supposed to drive fellow travelers to the family-friendly Kini Beach located in a horseshoe bay, but we’re going to taxi to a beach called Galissas.
I’m still eating iced watermelon in my favorite shipside restaurant, the Four Seasons, when my husband runs back to the dining room. “Forget the plans,” he says. “There’s a big demonstration waiting for us.”
Disrupted by anti-Israel demonstrations
On the shore of this small, isolated island, where the economy hinges on tourists like us, we can see a crowd waving Palestinian flags and holding a large “Stop the Genocide” sign in English. At our distance, it’s hard to count the protesters. Maybe a hundred. Maybe two or three hundred.
Nonetheless, the usual announcement that the Crown Iris has received permission to come ashore comes over the loudspeakers.
A phalanx of Israeli security officers, plainclothes men and women, sail on our voyage. They monitor boarding and deboarding. If they say we can get off, we trust them.
The fastest among us are already skipping down the stairs, but before we can gather our own beach bags, the first-off passengers are returning. It’s not safe to disembark.
At this point, we expect the island police to disperse the demonstration and clear our way.
Ten minutes pass, then 20.
We’re already in our bathing suits. Unlike the swimming pool in Syros, our ship’s pool is open.
On the sundeck above us, a young man is waving an Israeli flag of mysterious origin. He’s joined by half a dozen other young men. Have I mentioned that there are many army- and reserve-aged men aboard the Crown Iris, some with the telltale leather neck tans of service in Gaza?
No firearms are allowed on the ship.
The man with the flag begins to sing the chorus of the popular song by Sasson Ifram Shaulov, “Od Yoter Tov,” also called “Tamid Ohev Oti,” the Breslov refrain: The blessed God always loves, and I’ll always have better. We all join in.
Then an announcement comes. The ship will be moving on. No Syros today.
An initial happy cheer is followed by a sinking feeling.
The demonstrators on shore run to a position closer to us to celebrate their victory, shouting, ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” in heavy Greek accents. A Syros group called We Stay Active posts on social media that “those associated with the conflict – soldiers, settlers, and their supporters – were not welcome in Syros.”
It is worth remembering that 85% of Greek Jews, including those in Syros, were murdered in the Holocaust.
The Guardian’s headline: Cheering Gaza Protesters Force Israeli Cruise Ship to Turn Away.” And the Times of India takes it further: “Trapped Israeli Cruise Ship Forced to Flee.”
The protesters call on the Greek government to cut ties with Israel.
Despite the reported assurances by Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis to Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar that Israelis are welcome, it’s a depressing moment of defeat.
Where will we be sailing to?
Cyprus.
Was there one of us who didn’t make the comparison to the St. Louis sent back to Europe or the Exodus and their expulsion to Cyprus?
Of course, we all know we’re being silly. We’re on a luxury cruise ship, and thank God we live in a strong and prosperous homeland. But the idea that this crowd of demonstrators on an island most of us had not even heard of before this trip can cause an Israeli ship to sail away is a gloomy one.
Not only are there the unpleasant historical connotations of diverting to Cyprus, but reaching Limassol by ship will take more than 24 hours of sailing.
We want to ameliorate the experience for our youngsters. With a tip of my hat to my colleague and friend, Greer Cashman, who recently wrote about her longing for banana splits, we take seats in the wood-paneled Observatory Café on the ninth floor of the Crown Iris and order banana splits for everyone. Three scoops of ice cream and real whipped cream help pick up our mood.
The people of Syros don’t deserve our business.
It’s always sad when a long-anticipated vacation comes to an end. But this time, I am a little happier than usual to see Haifa Bay come into focus.
The writer is the Israel director of public relations at Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. Her latest book is A Daughter of Many Mothers.