He wasn't about to let a Do-Not-Travel warning upend his lifelong quest 

Photos: Hirsh Henfield

Hirsh Henfield wasn’t about to let the State Department’s do-not-travel list stand in the way of completing his quest. The 33-year-old Clevelander was just one country short of his goal of visiting the entire Middle East, with Yemen the only place he had yet to explore. Traveling to a place where threats of terrorism abound and strapping on a weapon is part of getting dressed in the morning was just part of the itinerary

Hirsh Henfield, who lives in the Shaker Heights area of Cleveland and works in the logistics business,  is a seasoned traveler. He and his wife Deena take their three sons on international trips over winter break and during the summers, and visits to Israel often include stopovers in Europe, giving the entire family a chance to experience different cultures and countries.  The Henfields take turns choosing a destination for an adults-only trip once each year, the most recent of which took them to Tunisia. Henfield also makes solo trips to destinations that Deena prefers to avoid.

“Sometimes it’s because of the level of danger, as well as the fact that many of these places are very conservative and traveling there as a woman isn’t always advisable,” he says of his wife's deferrals.

Seeing the world has always appealed to Henfield, whose childhood fascination with history later grew to encompass geography and geopolitics. Coupled with his love of understanding how Jewish history fits into the larger global picture, particularly in the Muslim world, Henfield’s interest in the Middle East comes as no surprise.

Henfield’s first foray into the region, outside of visiting Israel, came in 2010.  At the time, Henfield was a yeshivah student in Israel, and he and a friend walked over the Eilat border into the Sinai Desert, relishing the opportunity to add an Egyptian stamp to their passports.  A return trip to Egypt to visit the pyramids of Giza in 2017, along with visits to Cyprus and Jordan, had Henfield further entranced by the region’s sights, smells, and sounds, as well as its textures, cultures, and colors.

“I made it my goal to visit every country in the Middle East,” says Henfield.  “A big chunk of my life has been traveling to that part of the world.”

Over the years, Henfield continued chipping away at his list of the Middle East’s 17 countries to-be-visited, packing his bags and exploring their mysteries, one by one.  By Purim of 2023 he had already been traveling to the Middle East for 13 years, and with just Yemen left, he was so close to the finish line that he could almost taste its cumin-scented waft.  He threw himself into planning a five-day trip to Yemen, doing extensive research to identify and map out Jewish sites and areas, locate other areas of interest, and research the country’s ever-changing security situation.

Traveling to Yemen isn’t like planning a trip to London or Cancun. The only way to fly into Yemen is on Yemenia, the country’s official carrier, and there are no direct flights from the United States. Yemenia tickets can be booked only with cash payment at a local office in Yemen; it was one of many jobs handled by the guide Henfield hired for his trip.

Henfield’s travel plans to Yemen were anything but straightforward as he flew from Cleveland to New York to Cairo and, finally, to the Yemeni seaport city of Aden, using the nearly ten hours of stopovers on his itinerary to catch up on either sleep or work. Henfield was vigilant about getting his paperwork in order, while his guide coordinated his visit with the Yemeni government, which provided him with a visa, a special security letter, and, at his request, an armed soldier who accompanied him everywhere.