If you haven't been a Jew or an Israeli travelling outside of Israel you won't get the nerve this El Al ad touches. Growing up it was ingrained that outside of Israel, outside of heavily Jewish areas overseas you hid being Jewish as best you could - tuck Magen david and Hebrew necklaces under your shirt, cover your kipa with a hat or cap, don't tell people you are from Israel, don't carry a bag or wear a shirt with Hebrew writing or Jewish symbols and so on. My parents and my grandparents had heard too many hateful comments, a few times even experienced anti-Jewish physical violence in supposedly "safe" Western countries like the US, UK, Canada and France.

Just now travelling as an accompanying parent with our secondary school robotics team over Pesah to their international competition in the US (flying via Europe on a European airline) we had to explain all of this to the boys. My heart broke telling these religious boys that had to cover or take off their kippot, hide their tzittzit and most galling: we were told by security experts that our team couldn't display the Israeli flag on their competition uniforms because it was too dangerous. It was so humiliating and deeply upsetting to walk around the huge arena and see teams from all over the world with their national flags proudly on their team shirts while our boys team shirts had been designed to make sure they included no Hebrew, no Israeli flag and no mention of Israel.

The boys felt it too though - they had brought Israeli flags with them and during the competition, within the arena itself they draped themselves in the Israeli blue and white flag, just as teams from so many others countries proudly walked around with their national flags worn cape style over their shoulders. And you know what? Our team (and the several other Israeli teams also competing) were well received by people from all over, whether it was American teams (in the clear majority) or elsewhere, including students from Turkey, Armenia and China. This isn't to say that we needed to be alert to possible threats from anti-Semites and anti-Israeli activists, but that there is also a time to show our pride in who we are.