RETURN TO HOLY LAND

In 1963 and 1964 as a boy of sixteen I felt the urgent need to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.  It took me over a year of meetings with organizations, individuals and services - to say nothing of convincing my parents -  but I finally found a sponsor, boarded a 5000 ton converted ship and a week or so later arrived in Haifa. I then went on by bus to Jerusalem, staying a few days with my sponsors.  Their son, about to enter the IDF showed me around the city, but the closest I could get in those days to the Western Wall was to look at it through a telescope under an Israeli machine gun nest on Mount Zion - no Jews allowed in those days in the Old City.  A few days later I was off to a six month study-work program at Kibbutz Maabaroth.  The next year, after returning to Jerusalem and pledging to return to Mr Zion, I came back to America. Time passed, a half century really, and I have yet to return. I am, at 70, still in generally good health, living essentially on Social Security and this and that.  I have yet to return to the Holy Land, and am aware that - sooner or later - time will catch up with me.  While I can, I would like to  spend  some time in Israel both to redeem my youthful pledge and to see much more than I was able to in 1963-1964.

I have been getting small contributions on this appeal for about two years now.  In the Spring of 2016 a very very generous friend was kind enough to donate a round-trip ticket for Feburary 2017, allowing me to substantially lower my goal for this campaign.  Not being exactly a spring chiucken anymore, although I have friends in the Holy Land, I am no longer of an age to "crash" on people's sofas.  I need to raise about an additional thousand dollars for housing, transportation, food and misc. expenses.  I am asking - as I turned 70 in November 2016 for anyone who would be so kind to dig deep and help me reach that goal.  I have almost no funds of my own, and am dependent on your generosity.  Please help me make my dream a reality, and help me visit the Holy Land in February.

The pictures below are of me then and me now.  Please help me to redeem my pledge. Thank you for considering my request.

The photos are of me then, on Mt Hertzl, and a recent photo of me now.