09-18 Israel 1995

I arrived in Israel a week after Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated, to attend the 22nd International Small Business Congress in Tel Aviv. The nation was in mourning. In advance of the Congress, I visited the site where he was shot and his burial site. He was killed by a political extremist of the right that opposed Rabin’s peace accord with the PLO.
Alon,g with a colleague from Britain, Stan Mendham, we went to see the old city of Jerusalem. I saw people visiting the historic sights with tears running down their faces. So much history.
Stan and I visited the Western Wall, the remaining wall from Solomon's Temple and a holy site for Jews around the world. In the photo, there is a section for men and for women to approach the wall.
At the time, we had an orthodox Jewish girl working at CFIB, and I picked off some pieces of the Wall and put them in an envelope for her. You would have thought I had given her a million dollars.
The Church of Holy Sepulcher was located where Christ was crucified and buried and supposedly risen.
While at our hotel, we were told not to go into the old city on a Thursday which is a special day for Muslims. The famous Muslim Temple Mount is shown in the photo.
Stan and I walked through the Orthodox Jewish quarter, where on a Saturday, they will throw stones at anyone driving through in a car. The photo is in front of one of their local kosher shops.
At the Congress, Shimon Perez spoke to us via a live television feed. He talked about a society in mourning but one that would not abandon its desire for peace and reconciliation. He had been made Prime Minister after Rabin's death.
Stan and I did a lot of wandering about trying to understand this society and its culture. I did not identify with the people despite being half Jewish. Israel was like a “United Nations” outpost with different cultures gathered from all corners of the world. And, all learning Hebrew.
Young girls and boys could be seen everywhere you went with rifles over their shoulders. A taxi driver told us to put our seatbelts on but did not put his on. He said it is too dangerous for him to wear a seatbelt. He showed how someone could put the belt around his neck.
Jack Faris of the National Federation of Independent Business took us on a tour with a friend he had met in the US that was the Deputy Minister of Transport in the Israel government. He had a revolver under his arm, and he explained that everyone over a certain level in the bureaucracy was required to be armed.
He helped us understand the genius, necessity, entrepreneurship and creativity that made Israel a miracle of development in the region. But he said that Israel has a long way to go to give its people the kind of standard of living we enjoy in the West.