IcelandAir is going to soon open a direct route to Israel 3 times a week. The first flight was planned for May 10th, but was postponed to June 22, 2023. Some say that the postponement is due to low demand. But Iceland is a popular tourist destination, and if the demand is low, it might be due to unsuccessful marketing and promotion

The route potential is big. 4 years ago the Icelandic airline WOW operated direct flights from Ben Gurion airport to Reykjavík which was a great success. They operated 3 weekly flights for a reasonable price of less than 550$. Their flights were full not only because of cheap connecting flights to the USA, but also to many tourists who wish to experience new destinations. The WOW company went bankrupt within a few years, and as a result Israeli tourism to Iceland almost died out. Very few Israelis continued to arrive only on cruise ships, but not by flight

Iceland is a cold and small country. Only 385,000 residents live there, roughly as in Haifa. 3 people per square kilometer compared to 300 people per square kilometer here in Israel. About half of the residents live in Reykjavík, the capital of the country. There are other towns that each have relatively few residents, only a few hundred or thousands

In our hot summer, the temperature in Iceland is 10-18 degrees. A very clean country that preserves environmental quality and sustainability. Almost all electricity is provided by power plants and geothermal water heats the houses

Iceland is currently visited by about a million tourists a year. In the summer season the sun shines almost 24 hours a day. In the summer there is a lack of hotel room availability in Iceland, so it is advisable to book a hotel six months in advance. Sometimes we can find a hotel room about a month before our arrival, but it will be at expensive prices

Iceland offers plenty of natural tourist attractions. Its beauty is breathtaking. Everything is extreme there. Both the cold and the heat. Fire and water. Active volcanoes and glaciers. Shortly- a paradise for nature lovers

The biggest attraction in Iceland is the Northern Lights. Lights in shades of green appear in the sky during winter nights. They are caused by the meeting of gases made of charged particles that came from the sun

In Iceland there are volcanoes, some of them are active and lava flows down from them. Fagradalsfjall volcano erupted in 2021 and again in 2022, but is currently inactive. At the eruption site we can see fresh lava formations and volcanic craters

Iceland also has national parks that are worth visiting. The most interesting of them is The Geyser Park, where one geyser erupts from the ground every few minutes with huge amounts of water. Next, you should visit the giant Golofos waterfall, followed by Thingvellir National Park. Another attraction is a cruise alongside whales on the western beaches of the island

Iceland is also a wellness tourism destination. From its soil, many thermal springs with heat and various minerals emerge. Storage pools and spas were built above some of the springs, some of them are open to the air

Iceland's tourism office offers tours for one day or more days in these destinations. Details can be found on the website VisitIceland.is. We can also travel independently. The "golden ring" of trips in Iceland is on the road that circles the island for 1,300 km. You go for a trip in a rented car, and you get off the highway at the stops according to the signs

Culture and art are part of Iceland's national identity. It has many museums and concert halls

Judaism in Iceland

In 2011, a Beit Chabad was opened in Iceland that offers Israeli tourists accommodation for Shabbat and prayers. The first messenger was Rabbi Berl Pawzner. Most of the activity of the current Shaliach, Rabbi Avi Feldman, is with local Jews. He organizes events for them to celebrate the Jewish holidays together. Beit Chabad also has a synagogue and the only Torah scroll in Iceland, and a Jewish community is gradually forming around it. Today, the Jews in Iceland stand tall with pride, and no longer hide their Jewishness

About three years ago, the Icelandic government recognized the Jewish Community, something that has a financial impact. Last year, a Chabad purchased a building to open a Chabad Center in it, and nowadays the place is undergoing renovation. When the renovation and construction will be finished, a synagogue and a restaurant will also be opened there and will also serve Israeli tourists. Maybe also a kosher minimarket

Many religious Jews are coming to visit Iceland, especially groups from the United States and Israel, and also from Europe. The Shaliach prepared a list of kosher products that can be obtained in local supermarkets, including pictures of how they look. To see the list click here. Recently they also started importing kosher meat, and now it is marketed only to local Jews. Rabbi Feldman promises that kosher meat will soon be provided to tourists as well

Avi Feldman says that he has already located about 300 Jews on Iceland, and he continues to discover more and more. Many times when he walks down the street in Hassidic cloth and wearing a Chabad beard, passers-by turn to him and say "I'm Jewish too. I thought I am the only Jew in Iceland."         i

On my first trip to Iceland more than 25 years ago, I also met Israeli immigrants who came to live there following love and a relationship with a non-Jewish local. The wife of the former president of Iceland, Olafur Ragnar Grímsson, is a former Israeli named Dorit Musayouf, holding a current Israeli passport

It turns out that there is a Jewish history in Iceland as well. The word "Jews" in Icelandic is Gyðinga (Kidingar), from the word 'God' which is called Guð in Icelandic

Folktales in Iceland are called "saga". They also have an ancient medieval saga called Gyoinga Saga which means "Story of the Jews", it tells the story of Hanukkah as an abridged translation of our "Book of Maccabees".         i

There is documentation that Jews lived in Iceland already in the 18-19 centuries. Jacob Franco, a Jew from the Netherlands, was appointed in 1704 by the Copenhagen government to be in charge of the tobacco trade in Iceland. A few years later, all the tobacco imports to Iceland were in the hands of Avraham Kantor and Avraham Levin, of our people. There is also documentation that in 1815 the ship Ulrika docked in Iceland, with clothes and hats on board that were ordered by a Jewish textile merchant named Reuben Moses Henriks, who had a shop in Iceland too. The tallest building in Iceland was a 5-story tower that served as the office building of the import and export company "Nathan and Olsen". The owners of the company were the Jewish Fritz Hyman Natan with his Danish partner

Following the rise of the Nazis to power in Berlin, many Jews escaped Germany, and some of them fled to Iceland. They encountered manifestations of anti-Semitism even though before that the locals did not know Jews. When Denmark closed its doors to Jewish refugees in 1938, Iceland was also closed to Jews. In those years they even deported some of the Jews who had arrived as refugees in the previous years. In the early fifties, two synagogues operated in Iceland in Reykjavík and Keflavík. The congregation are mostly Jewish British soldiers, because only 9 Jewish residents lived in the entire country

Photos courtesy of VisitIcelnad