Cancelled Travel Backlash

[Anonymous]

Have you posted previously about this bar mitzvah in Israel? If that was you, I remember that your sister is selfish. This thread here reinforces the idea that your sister is incredibly selfish and also possibly a bit stupid. For your nephew’s sake, I hope the new local plan works out well.

[Anonymous]

Your family has been letting her get her way for a long while for her to get this bad. You don't have to play along.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yep, your sister is selfish and ungrateful. I suspect she's always been this way. However, I'm not letting your parents off the hook. They spoke about cancelling behind her back, but then can't bring themselves to be honest and defend you. Frankly, they should be ashamed and it's no wonder your sister is as terrible as she is!

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you posted previously about this bar mitzvah in Israel? If that was you, I remember that your sister is selfish. This thread here reinforces the idea that your sister is incredibly selfish and also possibly a bit stupid. For your nephew’s sake, I hope the new local plan works out well.

OP here. I did post, but you may not be thinking of me, as this was well over a year ago. I was complaining at that time about all the precovid reasons I didn’t want to go (expense, vacation time, time away from family vs pulling cousins from school, fear of flying, having no interest in vacationing in Israel etc etc) General consensus at that time was that I should suck it up and go. Which, to be fair, what I was doing until last week. And, I swear, zero complaining to sister after I made the decision to go. However, I think part of this is that I’m now paying the price, somewhat, for initial reluctance in that story seems to be I’m happy to have an excuse not to go. My mother also initially, as in two years ago, offered to pay for an entire local huge party if they would just do the ceremony either here or with immediate family only in Israel. 90% of invited guests weren’t ever coming. So, it wasn’t just me.

Btw, I know some families have lovely extended family trips for all sorts of destination events. This event had a ton of baggage from get go (which is kind of beside the point now). But, I don’t want to sound like no one should ever go to Israel for a Bnai Mitzvah.
I’m sure it’s a great option in some cases. But for many reasons (ranging from logistical to political to liturgical) it was a really bad idea in this case.

I’ll also mention that their older child, my niece, had an amazing bat mitzvah three years ago. Huge family attendance.
No drama. Beautiful event.

[Anonymous]

You cannot control the reactions of others, only your own responses.

I suspect you are a safe place for your sister to vent all of her frustrations about this entire event's falling through. It's not right, but it is what it is. Hold your head high and ignore the drama.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone arriving in Israel will be quarantined for two weeks.

OP here. That’s the only reason it’s off. It was “on” (as far as they knew) as off this morning. Grandparents played it better (in retrospect) than I did by delaying telling the family they were cancelling. I don’t blame this. Drama sucks

I'm having a hard time following your story
.

Is the event cancelled now?

OP here. Sorry, I’m not the best writer.
Sister is not speaking to me, so i didn’t receive an “official” notice of cancellation. Both sets of grandparents were busy cancelling behind the scenes, so, when the announcement came out this afternoon about Israel effectively closing off the borders to tourists, they jumped straight to communicating how much they were “regretting” the event was cancelled. I’m only hearing about these conversations through my mom. I’m sure they are, as an I, sad for sisters family and for nephew that the event is off. But everyone but me gets to pretend they were all completely on board with going until forced, by Israeli policy, to cancel. So, because I was honest earlier and sister was completely unreasonable about this from the beginning, I’m being painted as the bad guy. I do feel badly for my mom who is in the middle and honestly just didn’t want to upset her kid.

Your sister sounds selfish but you sound exhausting. What the heck are you prattling on about?

??. The PP is either a very poor, lazy reader, or just a jerk. OP wasn't prattling on, she was clarifying the issue as questioned by a different previous poster.

Hey nasty PP poster - if you're going to make a snarky comment, at least take the time to make sure you aren't the one who doesn't understand what's being said. You look a jackass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone arriving in Israel will be quarantined for two weeks.

OP here. That’s the only reason it’s off. It was “on” (as far as they knew) as off this morning. Grandparents played it better (in retrospect) than I did by delaying telling the family they were cancelling. I don’t blame this. Drama sucks

I'm having a hard time following your story
.

Is the event cancelled now?

OP here. Sorry, I’m not the best writer.
Sister is not speaking to me, so i didn’t receive an “official” notice of cancellation. Both sets of grandparents were busy cancelling behind the scenes, so, when the announcement came out this afternoon about Israel effectively closing off the borders to tourists, they jumped straight to communicating how much they were “regretting” the event was cancelled. I’m only hearing about these conversations through my mom. I’m sure they are, as an I, sad for sisters family and for nephew that the event is off. But everyone but me gets to pretend they were all completely on board with going until forced, by Israeli policy, to cancel. So, because I was honest earlier and sister was completely unreasonable about this from the beginning, I’m being painted as the bad guy. I do feel badly for my mom who is in the middle and honestly just didn’t want to upset her kid.

Your sister sounds selfish but you sound exhausting. What the heck are you prattling on about?

??. The PP is either a very poor, lazy reader, or just a jerk. OP wasn't prattling on, she was clarifying the issue as questioned by a different previous poster.

Hey nasty PP poster - if you're going to make a snarky comment, at least take the time to make sure you aren't the one who doesn't understand what's being said. You look a jackass.

Sister is over the top. Sister is pissed OP isn’t coming. It’s not that complicated. Life goes on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone arriving in Israel will be quarantined for two weeks.

OP here. That’s the only reason it’s off. It was “on” (as far as they knew) as off this morning. Grandparents played it better (in retrospect) than I did by delaying telling the family they were cancelling. I don’t blame this. Drama sucks

I'm having a hard time following your story
.

Is the event cancelled now?

OP here. Sorry, I’m not the best writer.
Sister is not speaking to me, so i didn’t receive an “official” notice of cancellation. Both sets of grandparents were busy cancelling behind the scenes, so, when the announcement came out this afternoon about Israel effectively closing off the borders to tourists, they jumped straight to communicating how much they were “regretting” the event was cancelled. I’m only hearing about these conversations through my mom. I’m sure they are, as an I, sad for sisters family and for nephew that the event is off. But everyone but me gets to pretend they were all completely on board with going until forced, by Israeli policy, to cancel. So, because I was honest earlier and sister was completely unreasonable about this from the beginning, I’m being painted as the bad guy. I do feel badly for my mom who is in the middle and honestly just didn’t want to upset her kid.

Your sister sounds selfish but you sound exhausting. What the heck are you prattling on about?

??. The PP is either a very poor, lazy reader, or just a jerk. OP wasn't prattling on, she was clarifying the issue as questioned by a different previous poster.

Hey nasty PP poster - if you're going to make a snarky comment, at least take the time to make sure you aren't the one who doesn't understand what's being said. You look a jackass.

Sister is over the top. Sister is pissed OP isn’t coming. It’s not that complicated. Life goes on.

OP here. You are either the snarky PP or my husband in disguise. Either way I like you.

[Anonymous]

OP- is part of the issue that you cancelled via text vs. a phone call?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP- is part of the issue that you cancelled via text vs. a phone call?

OP here. I cancelled via phone. Had a really undramatic conversation about it. Thought we at least understood each other. The next day I had a weird conversation with my mother where she was relaying how upset everyone was. I tried calling again just to talk and my (two tries) calls were screened. I got a text later that evening officially cutting me off. I responded just once by text saying that I loved them, understood they were angry, and hoped I could eventually do something special with Bar Mitzvah boy but understood if they wanted space right now. And then I moved on to using DCUM for my venting!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP- is part of the issue that you cancelled via text vs. a phone call?

OP here. I cancelled via phone. Had a really undramatic conversation about it. Thought we at least understood each other. The next day I had a weird conversation with my mother where she was relaying how upset everyone was. I tried calling again just to talk and my (two tries) calls were screened. I got a text later that evening officially cutting me off. I responded just once by text saying that I loved them, understood they were angry, and hoped I could eventually do something special with Bar Mitzvah boy but understood if they wanted space right now. And then I moved on to using DCUM for my venting!

OP once again. I realize the timeline moved really fast on this. I cancelled the day their final payment for tours was due. I have no idea what grandparents were thinking at that point, as I didn't press my mother to make a decision and I have had zero direct conversations with the other grandparents. Lovely people but we aren't that close. I learned about grandparents making actual cancellation plans the day the CDC came out with new advice for high risk groups (that lead to the conversation with my mother). And, just yesterday is when Israel closed off borders, effectively, to tourists so that's when the grandparents went "public" with their cancellations.

[Anonymous]

Your sister is angry that the event was cancelled due to matters beyond anyone's control.

Because you cancelled before the event was officially "off" she's taking her anger and disappointment out on you, as if you're personally responsible for coronavirus.

You need to ignore it- if she wants to create a rift over something that is completely not your fault, then let it be. She sounds selfish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yep, your sister is selfish and ungrateful. I suspect she's always been this way. However, I'm not letting your parents off the hook. They spoke about cancelling behind her back, but then can't bring themselves to be honest and defend you. Frankly, they should be ashamed and it's no wonder your sister is as terrible as she is!

+1

+2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone arriving in Israel will be quarantined for two weeks.

OP here. That’s the only reason it’s off. It was “on” (as far as they knew) as off this morning. Grandparents played it better (in retrospect) than I did by delaying telling the family they were cancelling. I don’t blame this. Drama sucks

I'm having a hard time following your story
.

Is the event cancelled now?

OP here. Sorry, I’m not the best writer.
Sister is not speaking to me, so i didn’t receive an “official” notice of cancellation. Both sets of grandparents were busy cancelling behind the scenes, so, when the announcement came out this afternoon about Israel effectively closing off the borders to tourists, they jumped straight to communicating how much they were “regretting” the event was cancelled. I’m only hearing about these conversations through my mom. I’m sure they are, as an I, sad for sisters family and for nephew that the event is off. But everyone but me gets to pretend they were all completely on board with going until forced, by Israeli policy, to cancel. So, because I was honest earlier and sister was completely unreasonable about this from the beginning, I’m being painted as the bad guy. I do feel badly for my mom who is in the middle and honestly just didn’t want to upset her kid.

Your sister sounds selfish but you sound exhausting. What the heck are you prattling on about?

Np.

Everyone was planning to cancel but only OP was honest about it. Grandparents all pretended like they were going to go up to the minute it was cancelled. So OP’s sister is only mad at her.

[Anonymous]

Your sister is crazy. She should be apologizing to you.