Pity you didn’t post here earlier and sorry your friend had such a hassle and the trip was in vain.

If the timing would have worked, I would have asked for routing on AA/BA/IB to TLV (via some combination of JFK/MIA, MAD/LHR) followed by RJ to AMM, or perhaps AA to JFK or ORD followed by nonstop RJ to AMM. You could even have tried AY to HEL to TLV and then RJ to AMM or to get to IST on AA/BA/IB and then RJ to AMM from there.