Update!: They are HERE! Exhausted but safe. Thank you for everyone who helped by donating, sharing, and sending good thoughts their way for what ended up being a very long journey. Thank you!!

Hi, my name is Christa Rutherford-Block and my best friend of over 25 years, Ariela Lacovsky (née Harriet Lerman) is attempting to get to the United States from Israel. Hopefully to Minnesota. She had flights secured for her and her family but they have now been canceled and the airlines haven’t refunded her money.

She hopes to get on an embassy flight in the coming days which will help her leave Israel, but will strand her in Europe with no way to get to the United States where she plans to stay with family. Any amount helps.