Jewish Agency, Scotland

• 1987 (March) - "In March 1987 I had the good fortune to participate in a study tour of Israel organized and conducted by that wonderful couple, John and Irene Eivan, of the Edinburgh Friends of Israel. This was the first of a series of lucky chances which culminated in my aliyah in October of that same year, 1987. My plan was to stay in a Tel Aviv hotel for two weeks after the Friends had returned to Edinburgh, and try to find a suitable flat. But before the end of the tour, in fact on the last evening, at the farewell party sponsored by the Zionist Organization in the Windmill Hotel in Jerusalem, my second lucky chance occurred. I was introduced to and warmly welcomed by Uzi and Daniella Shilon. Uzi is a well known lawyer. His family has been settled in Israel for four generations. He and his charming wife speak excellent English with a faintly familiar accent which they acquired during two years spent in Glasgow, where Uzi worked in the Jewish Agency as a "shaliach", or middle-man between Scotland and Israel (the literal translation would be, I suppose, "emissary"). They had made the journey from Ramat-Gan to Jerusalem on purpose to meet some of their Scottish friends at the Windmill Hotel party, and they were destined to become my best friends in Israel.

Based at 222 Fenwick Road, Giffnock, Glasgow, G46 6UE.