This trip to Israel continues to be a trip of my life. I am grateful that my good friend Steven Schwarz made last minute room for me to join. Steven has been very active as a past president of the Phoenix Federation and now focuses on mentoring young people while he continues to build his successful real estate company ViaWest in Phoenix. I have had Steven on the Lindzanity podcast and you can listen here.

I can’t wait to pay it forward next year and organize a group to come on a trip like this.

Today we spent the day touring the in and around Jerusalem and ending up at the Western Wall. Here are a couple photos:

I did leave the ‘perfect’ note.

What a complicated city and I’m talking just the maps and territory rights, not politics, government, religion etc.

At our shabbat dinner our group hosted a ‘lone soldier‘. A ‘lone soldier‘ is a soldier in the IDF (military) with no family in Israel to support him or her: a new immigrant, a volunteer from abroad, an orphan or an individual from a broken home. It was quite humbling to hear his story. There are tens of thousands more.

Tomorrow we are heading to Ramallah which is inside the West Bank. Israeli’s are not allowed so it will be another complicated day but hopefully a great day to observe and learn.