Bibi flies the frum-friendly skies
Two years, ago she was hailed as the first charedi Orthodox woman accepted to El Al’s pilot training program.
On Wednesday, having earned her wings earlier this year, Nechama Spiegel Novak flew Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a summit in Greece.
The prime minister and his wife, Sara, took several photos with the pilot, who was the first officer on the flight, before they took off.
Novak, a mother of four, went to flight school in the United States, and then she worked there to log enough flight hours to quality for her license. Before flight school, she had gone to a Bais Yaakov seminary. She did not serve in the Israeli Air Force. Both those things differentiate her from most other Israeli pilots.
“Being a pilot has always been a dream of mine,” she said in 2015, when she started her El Al training program. “My husband is very supportive, and he is helping realize this dream.”
Novak lives in a charedi neighborhood of Jerusalem and rarely grants interviews.
JTA Wire Service
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