Editor's Note: For background information on this story, please read, "A Journey Through Israel ".

Fann reflects on his trip to Israel.

Mike Fann, owner of Fann Contracting, was talking about the trip he took to Israel as part of a group of 26 community leaders. The Greater Prescott Leadership Mission to Israel was a nine-day educational tour made possible by the America-Israel Friendship League (AIFL) and the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Prescott (JCF).

Fann explained, "The purpose of the trip, as I understand it, was to educate the delegates - and the delegates were people chosen by the Jewish Community Foundation, that they felt were leaders in their community, people that have some influence, or have a voice in the community, and the purpose was to educate us on a first-hand basis of what it's really like in Israel. Not what you read in the press, whether you call it the liberal media or not; not what you see on NBC, CBS, CNN or even Fox, and not what you read in newspapers, but firsthand experience on what it's really like over there."

Three Religions - No Simple Solutions

Although Fann had seen the multitude of news accounts about terror attacks in Israel, he wasn't too concerned about going on the trip. "Obviously, everyone had various levels of concern about how safe it was. I felt as safe there as any where I've travelled in the world. People go about their lives, just like we do, go to work, come home, cook dinner, feed their family, not only in Tel Aviv, and in areas in Israel that are not close to the border, but people that live right on the border of Palestine. They live their lives and go to work just like we do every day. Very interesting."

Now, several months after returning from Israel, has the trip made a difference in Fann's perspective? Fann reflected a moment before answering, "Before my trip to Israel, it was very easy for me to flip past world news in the newspaper, and if I'm on my homepage in Yahoo and flip past, not look at stories that are world events that have to do with Israel. Now I find it very difficult not to stop and read and find out what is going on and understand it better on what the conflict is all about. And I think that's from a political standpoint - I mean touching me from a religious standpoint was probably the greatest impact of the trip, but right on the heels of that was an understanding of the politics."

"The reason the solutions are so complex and difficult is because the problem and the beginning of the problem is so complex and difficult," Fann continued. "Jerusalem was a Jewish country in what is now Israel from 2000 BC. And when the Babylonians came in and expelled them from that country, expelled all the people that lived there; I don't know if back then they were called Jews, but the people that lived in and around Jerusalem back then were expelled and they [the Babylonians] destroyed the first temple. Then they eventually worked their way back and built the second temple, somewhere around 500 BC and then the Romans came in and expelled them and destroyed the Temple again, I mean it's not a country where the Jewish people went in and expelled Palestinians and replaced them. It was 1947 that the United Nations said, 'You know what, let's make a Palestinian state and a Jewish state, and let's try to get them to live in harmony there.' And the extremists failed to allow that to happen since 1947. So, it's not easy, it wasn't easy on the Palestinian people, you have to feel for them, but you have to feel for the Israeli folks, too. It's not a - it's a very difficult and complex problem."

Fann spoke about the fact that the history actually goes back much farther than 1947, and is enmeshed in all three religions. "But when you think about Islam and Judaism and Christianity, there was no difference for many thousands of years until the birth of Christ, and Christianity put the belief that Jesus is the Son of God into Judaism, I believe... I'm not going to say that my theology was great, but I believe that the Jews would say that Jesus was indeed a prophet, but not the Son of God. And of course, Mohammed, the very rock that Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac is where they believed Mohammed rose to the Heavens to bring back the Word of God in their religion. Israel and the Temple Mount and the al-Aqsa Mosque and all of those sites around Jerusalem are tremendously religious sites for Judaism, Islam and Christianity - all three. They all converge right there and all are adjacent to what was Mesopotamia, which is supposedly the birth of Civilization. It's an amazing country."

Noting that Israel is in a difficult situation, Fann also spoke of the balancing act that the Jewish citizens have to try to manage, "They did win the Six Day War. And then they turned around and gave the al-Aqsa Temple and the Temple on the Mount - in the Six Day War, the Israelis took over that part of Jerusalem that was the Palestinian part, but since then they've given control of it back. And Jewish people, even though they [Israel] took control of it, they did not change the ruling where Jews can enter the Temple Mount, so that's why the Western Wall is still such a sacred spot, because that's the closest they can get to the Temple Mount where Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac. So they really are striving for peace, and they have a peace treaty with Egypt and they have a peace treaty with Jordan, and hopefully someday they'll have the same treaties with Lebanon and Syria and other Arab countries. But, who knows when that will ever happen, especially in the Gaza Strip, I don't know if it will ever happen. Probably with some people it will happen... When you throw the religion in there with the politics, when you combine the two, as they do in Arab countries, it makes solutions very, very difficult."

"The other thing is that people don't understand - for one thing, they think about Muslims and Jews being at war," Fann added. "Almost 20 percent of the population within Israel is Muslim. They live their lives in peace and harmony and go to work side by side with Jews every day and it's not a problem. It is those that choose not to live in peace that is the problem."

Fann said that the trip "...has educated me over a lot of things that if somebody said, 'Well, what do you think about this?' I'd say, 'Well I don't know, I only know what I read in the newspaper.' I don't know if it's changed me so much as much as given me an understanding so I have a perspective on certain issues, I'd say more it has educated me to where I have a strong perspective on issues whereas before my response would be, 'I don't know.'"

More Than Knowledge - It Touched My Heart

Church of the Beatitudes. Photo by Tracey Horn.

Fann, whose face softened as he spoke of some of the places they went, and what they saw, pointed to more photos. "When we were at the Church of the Beatitudes where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount, it literally took my breath away. Dan Storvick with the Lutheran Church read the scriptures referrring to the sermon on the mount. It was just amazing, it was very emotional. And then walking the Via Dolorosa where Jesus carried the cross on His final walk - it was amazing."

When asked what made the biggest impact, Fann answered immediately, "The Church of the Beatitudes. I found it a very emotional experience to stand on the mount where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount and be right there and listening to Dan Storvick read the scriptures from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount while we were standing on that very location. It just took my breath away, it was amazing."

Fann turned more pages in the book, "Every religious site has a church or temple built on it. In fact there is a picture of Dan reading from the Scriptures, the Church of the Beatitudes is right behind him right here, and we were sitting on the top of the mount. There's me and Kathleen Murphy. This is the site that really stands out for me - I don't really know why, it was an emotional experience."

And yet, the experience didn't end there, he said. "Right there, we left the site of the Church of the Beatitudes and you go down the road just a hop skip and a jump away, and it's the Church of the Multiplication where Jesus broke bread and fed the 5000, and not far from that was Karfanum which was the house of Peter where Jesus gave sermons alongside the sea of Galilee as a young adult..."

While In Isreal...

Fann spoke about the trip itself, "It was intense, we were up early every morning, we had our own, there was a total of 26 of us, so we had our own small bus, a short bus. But we were up early every morning to go to various speeches, we visited the University of Tel Aviv, we visited the Ben Gurian University in the Negev desert, we visited hospitals, we heard speeches and programs from a series of speakers nearly every day, if not every day, we went to a speech or a presentation by various people to tell us and teach us about the economics of Israel, the politics of Israel, the religious impacts of Israel; to really give us a 360º view of the country, an indepth view of what it's like to live in Israel and an understanding of the problems and the issues. It was really an amazingly educational trip in all aspects of Israel and the history of the politics."

"Reuven was the guide that was set up for our trip," Fann explained with complete admiration in his voice. "Reuven has a tremendous education in history, politics, geo-political, everything about the economic background of Israel, he just knew it all. And he was with us every day, every evening throughout the trip to answer questions and give us a narration about Israel as we travelled throughout the countryside. It was amazing."

When asked about the food, Fann admitted that it wasn't what he was used to eating every day. "The food was very good, probably not what I would prefer all the time, a lot of vegetarian plates, more bland, not terribly spicy, although some was spicy. Very good, but not great," he said. However, he had no complaints, "I wouldn't have had it any other way. If I go to any country, I'm going to taste their cuisine, I'm going to submerge into their culture as much as I possibly can. And there is McDonald's there. It was funny to see the Golden Arches and the name McDonald's in Hebrew."

There were some surprised for Fann, as he explained, "I really expected a lot of our freedoms and their freedoms in essence taken away just for security reasons. And we really had the freedom to come and go as we pleased. I really expected a much more regimented lifestyle while we were over there... Although you do see Israeli soldiers frequently, ummm... when an Israeli goes into high school, he will go into the military service. There isn't a a 'military draft', because everybody is drafted. Male and female both; and you see male and female soldiers both as we travel the countryside. But it's not like there is all these checkpoints and they check your papers, and you go through lots of severe scrutiny, because you don't. Now when you get on an airplane, the scrutiny is definitely there. Both when we entered and then when we left. But not a great deal more than what we have in America today post 9-11."

Fann felt completely accepted by the Jewish population, stating, "The Israelis are made up of mostly people that were born there. I think that somewhere around 20 percent of their population have emigrated. You have to be Jewish to live in Israel, to move there now, and live there. You are welcomed to live there, but I think somewhere around 20 percent of their population is immigrants, mostly from America and Europe. So as far as when we're walking around there, we don't look any different - our dress might be a little different, but not a tremendous amount. We weren't treated as foreigners. You'd be amazed at how many tourists that are touring Israel. When we went to the various sites where tour buses come in and out, the amount of Russians and Asians and Americans and Europeans, there's a lot of tourists that visit Israel."

Building Blocks in Construction

And the people he encountered? Fann smiled spontaneously, "Terribly friendly. They were very nice, we had a great experience. They asked us who we would like to visit with to talk about what it's really like to work in our industry over there. So they set me up with a construction manager on a construction site. I got to spend a half a day visiting with Avi Katz, and talking about how it's like to work over there, and what it's like to work over here - he asked me lots of questions, too. So it was very enjoyable to drive around his construction site and show me how they do things differently than they do things here. And everybody on our trip that chose to do so got to meet with a counterpart on their trip. Sheila Polk met with another district attorney or something similar. Everyone got to meet, if they chose to, with someone that they found interesting that deals with the same thing that they deal with. That was great."

In Israel, Fann found that the construction industry is very active. "Everywhere you go, there's construction going on. They are very prosperous, they have made a country where there was mainly desert and a very arid land, a very producing countryside, with all of the irrigation and the farming that goes on and their technical expertise. They have an emphasis on education and improving the technological export is big on their list."

He noted that the construction industry in the two countries have a lot of similarities. "Different than what we do here, but mainly because of their geology. Not a lot different, but some little differences that I noticed. Tower cranes are used everywhere. They were building a residential community and you never see tower cranes in a residential community in the United States, they are strictly used on high rise construction, well they were using them in a residential community, tower cranes are everywhere. Most construction materials were fairly standard. They have a tremendous amount of limestone, so they have stone quarries. So they build a lot of their buildings with limestone. Most everything was stone and masonry..."

Time for Shopping?

What about tourism and shopping? Fann grinned and nodded his head. "Along the Via Dolorosa in the old city, there's just tiny shop after tiny shop everywhere. I brought back from the Church of the Sepulchre - there were shops very close to where Christ was crucified and prepared for burial - there were jewelry shops there, so I brought back Jerusalem crosses for all the girls in my family, it was very special. They barter, it was expected. It's part of the experience of shopping. In fact, our guide said that many shop owners, if you won't barter with them, they won't respect you, they don't like it. It's part of the fun of getting into the shopping experience. It's priced expecting to barter down, you just do not pay the marked price."

Looking at Every Day Life Through a New Perspective

When asked if the trip had changed him, Fann sighed as he thought about the question, "I don't know that it has - I suppose it has in a way of changing the way I look at the importance of fate. Our daily trials and tribulations are nothing. I suppose - that's why I would love to take my kids. It really opens your eyes on how menial the things are that we deal with daily, and how there is a much broader picture in the world and in life in general and in the important things of life."

"I mean we live our life every day in relative security," Fann continued. "Those people live their lives every day with the threat of annihiliation - there are millions of people around them that feel they should be annihiliated, there's no room in the world for them. And you do realize that if, for instance, Iran, would acquire a nuclear weapon, there's no question what they would do with it. So it is troubling to think what could happen over there to people like you and me. Although we have different religious beliefs, in America, we learn at an early age that we have the freedom to practice what religion we choose to practice and everybody has a right to live. Now, they may indeed be judged someday, and where their soul goes in the afterlife depends on how they live their life, but that's not for us to judge. So, the freedom of religion that we often take for granted here is something that ... there are Arab countries where you are a criminal if you practice Christianity. So, those people over there have the right to live and breathe and practice what religion they choose and their judgement day, good, bad or indifferent will come. As will ours. It's difficult to understand why there is a belief though, that there is a right for annihiliation of 'infidels.'"

He spoke of his increased awareness of American freedom, "And an understanding of why America should be - it's hard to understand the position of some people who have walked through life with a, I'm going to say, a somewhat naive attitude of what evils are out there and why we have to do what we have to do to fight for our freedom. It does give you an appreciation for that."

Chosen With A Purpose

When asked what he will do with what he learned and experienced, Fann replied, "Well, you know what my role is. I suppose in one fashion, it's just like you coming to see me today, and considering doing a story on what the experience was like for me. I guess what I believe their expectation was or the goal of taking us there was to come back and tell us the story to people that we know and people that we talk to on what it's really like in Israel - versus what CNN says it's like in Israel. I think the bottom line is - well I imagine that halfway around the world, if you read about New York and Miami, and to a certain extent, Los Angeles, you would think that people get mugged and raped and stolen from and murdered - it's a common occurence. It's not safe to walk down the streets. Yet we all know that's ridiculous, that is the exception to the rule, but what do you read in the newspaper, you read newsworthy stories about crime and the bad stuff that tends to be newsworthy, you don't read the 99 percent of other activies that are every day people living every day lives. And so I think it is in Israel, that what we see on TV or read in the news are those things that are somewhat sensational or newsworthy. I'm not saying that's bad, I'm just saying that's the way it is. So, that's what we read about and see and so that is our perception of the country versus the 99.9 percent of the every day lives of the every day Israeli living his life just like we do."

As he finished up, Fann expressed his appreciation for the opportunity. "I feel a great debt to the Jewish Community Foundation for taking us and showing us and educating us like they did, it was a wonderful experience. They really treated us right and gave us a tremendous education it was a trip of a lifetime. It was a trip that you could not do on your own, and get the experience that we got. Such a flavor for their culture and their history, and to have Reuven the guide there to answer questions all day, every day and tell us stories and what these sites mean and the history of them and the political ramifications and going through Jerusalem and combining the history and the religous and the politics all together on what that means over there, I mean, how do you do that when you just go on vacation? You just don't get that."

Looking Back - And Forward

So, would Fann go back? "I'd love to go back again. I've told that over and over and over... Before this I never would have thought to travel to Israel. If somebody had said, 'Name the top 20 places you would like to visit in the world," I'm certain Israel would not have been on my list of places I wanted to visit. Today if somebody said, 'If you were going to go overseas, what are the top three places?' Israel would be one of them, and it may be number one. Since I've been there now, I don't know that it would be number one only because I have been there, but I definitely would love to return and go back. I'd love to take my kids."

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"Walking Where Jesus Walked"
written by Jo Ann Johnson, March 25, 2008

Excellent interview. Engaging article. Outstanding photos. I shall return for the video. Do you have plans to submit this article to a secondary market? JJ

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"Walking Where Jesus Walked"
written by Jo Ann Johnson, March 25, 2008

Excellent interview. Engaging article. Outstanding photos. I shall return for the video. Are you planning to submit this article to a secondary market?

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vote up

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