The farewell speeches were short and the cake was large.

The next day, as the 366 new immigrants from the U.S. and Canada -- including Silver Spring's Starr family and Avraham Bieler -- arrived at Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport following a N'fesh B'Nefesh flight from New York, they walked through an extraordinary gauntlet of hundreds of greeters who had come to wish them success in their new life. Waving flags, clapping, singing and dancing, soldiers and Israeli civilians smiled at and shook hands with the new immigrants at the old Terminal 1 building at the airport used for the special occasion.

It was a kef -- Hebrew for a great time -- for the newcomers, but it was fun with a purpose, giving them a morale boost.

It's not that most immigrants aren't committed to living in the Jewish state. Like most olim, immigrants, to the Jewish state, Ezra and Devorah Starr had been planning to make aliyah for years, discussing the possibility while they were still dating. Avraham Bieler arrived at his decision to live in Israel after hours of discussion and soul searching. All three seem firmly committed to their decisions and confident in their choice.

But, as Bieler, the Starrs with their three children and the others wended their way eastward on Tuesday of last week, they seemed to understand that planning had given way to action.

"It feels a little surreal," Devorah Starr said during the flight. "I imagine once we get to our house with all our things around us, it will feel more real."

These feelings of being a little jittery are exactly what the airport celebrations -- at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and at Ben-Gurion -- are meant to counteract.

Those ceremonies are important, Tony Gelbart, who founded NBN with Rabbi Yehoshua Fass, said in an interview on the plane, because these immigrants are "at the beginning of a journey, a very emotional journey."

They have said good-bye to family and friends, often at the airport, and once they get through security and can't see their loved ones anymore, they may feel isolated, alone.

"So if you bring all these people together, they will see other people feeling those same emotions and will realize they are not alone," Gelbart said about his organization, which assists new immigrants before and after their move to Israel.

The idea is to make the people feel they are all part of one big family, he said.

So when they get to the airports, they get huge hugs from people they know and from people they don't know, and it buoys them.

Israel Consul General in New York Asaf Shariv seemed to speak to that point at the Kennedy Airport celebration when he said: "Whatever you will do in your homeland, you will do it with your brothers and your sisters."

Also speaking at the New York airport were Gelbart, Fass and Neil Gillman, Jewish Agency shaliach (emissary), who was on the flight with his wife, Aliza, and son, Mordechai, to return home to Israel after their stint at the aliyah center in Rockville.

In Tel Aviv, the speakers included Yuli Edelstein, minister for Diaspora affairs, Deputy Prime Minister Eli Ben Ishai of the Shas Party and Natan Sharansky, chair of the Jewish Agency for Israel. The former prisoner of Zion told the crowd that a few years ago, a commonly heard joke defined a Zionist as an American paying a Russian to live in Israel.

"But that's no longer true," he said.

Speaking of the importance of airport ceremonies at both ends, Gelbart said, "It's an emotional thing that people don't forget."

"People who made aliyah six or seven years ago tell us the most important thing was the meeting and greeting at the airport [at Ben-Gurion] and the good-bye ceremony [at JFK]."

The big hug seemed to work on most of the olim at Ben-Gurion.

"Amazing," was Devorah Starr's response.

Bieler termed the entrance to the terminal building and the ceremony "very cool, overwhelming." Having so many important Israelis come to greet them was a "unique experience," he said.

Aaron Leibel accompanied the new immigrants on their flight as a guest of Nefesh B'Nefesh.