Will I return?
Been to Israel twice, first time was October 26, 1971. I was in the US Army stationed in Germany, my time in Germany will end in 6 months, always wanted to go to Israel, and thought that would be a good time to go before I went back to the US.
I was a young man of 21 years old.
Traveled all over Israel, even ascended the Temple mount.
I must admit, I call myself a Wannabe Jew. My father was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, my mother was Protestant and I was raised in a secular home. How I discovered my Jewish roots is another story.
I have studied the King James Bible and Tanakh, now studying the Talmud, not easy, and takes a lot of time. I was very ignorant of Judaism and its customs, and didn’t understand what I was seeing at the Kotel. It was within the last ten years did I learned of the Shechinah, and wish I would have known about it when I was there. I wish I would have opened my heart, and let it take hold of my body and make it move like a candle. Proverbs 20:27 that the soul of man is God’s candle. Swaying back and forth while praying represents a candle’s flame that flickers back and forth while burning. I did feel something, but don’t know what it was that I felt. I can say this, I did not want to leave Israel, but in 1971 I was in the US Army, and would have been a deserter, the Israeli government would have deported me. The Second time I went to Israel in 2011, I had a family in the US.
How I managed to go on these trips to Israel is a story within itself.
It is my dream to go back to Israel and make it my home. I did apply to make Aliyah while I was in Egypt, and was approved for the Go-North Program, very good program. This occurred just after Mohamed Morsi became president of Egypt during the during the Egyptian revolution, he didn’t like Jews, and after the Egyptian officer I was working with discovered I’m Jewish as a result of my trip to Israel, I was kicked out of Egypt. So many things were happening in my life, I never made Aliyah, and now due to terrorism in Israel, my family refuses to make Aliyah.
That pull is there, I can feel it, like Hashem is saying, come home Julius. Now I’m old and sick, and wonder will I ever go home before I die? A sad thought.