My name is Shmuel Browns. I came into this world at the Beilinson Hospital in Petakh Tikva, Israel on a Shabbat afternoon in May making me a sabra. I moved in with my parents, Dvora and Moshe, from Ottawa and Montreal, who had made aliyah to Israel in 1947 while the British were limiting immigration (they got preferential treatment as Canadians and hence British subjects). We lived in a small concrete block house in the town of Holon (from the Hebrew word, hol, meaning sand) out on the sand dunes. Here is a photo of my parents outside the house on 24 Sirkin.

It wasn’t easy to make it in Israel then and after 6 years my parents returned to Canada and I grew up in Ottawa. It took me 26 years to come back to Israel, I spent a year living and studying in Jerusalem and travelling around the country and I loved it. I thought of taking the guide course offered by the Ministry of Tourism but instead went on to graduate school. After completing my Masters degree in Computer Science I worked as a consultant in Canada and then England. In 1986 I made aliya to Jerusalem with my spouse and daughter, four sons were born in Jerusalem. We lived here for 8 years until after the Gulf War and then 9 years in Cambridge, MA. In the summer of 2004 we came home and I enrolled in the guide course, a two year intensive course of lectures and touring. After passing the exams I received my tour guide license, fulfilling my dream. I would be delighted to meet you and show you some of the Israel I know. I am a native English speaker and fluent in Hebrew.