Just before Passover, Herbert Moses of Florida saw a promo on the EL AL Israel Airlines website for the ISRAEL21c and EL AL sweepstakes offering two free roundtrip tickets to Israel.
“Herb never believed in sweepstakes, but he did this one,” comments his wife, Arlene.
“It was on the EL AL website, so I figured it was not a scam,” Herb explains. “I put in our contact info and all of a sudden I got an email that said ‘Congratulations!’”
Herb and Arlene tell us that they are thrilled to have won the prize of the plane tickets plus a free five-day stay in any Fattal hotel in Israel.
“We’re a retired couple living in South Florida. Our last trip to Israel was in November 2017 and it was amazing,” says Herb.
“I had been in Israel 25 years ago, when my niece had her bat mitzvah at Masada. It was such an emotional trip,” says Arlene. “For my 75th birthday, all I wanted to do was to go back to Israel and we did. I heard there had been so many changes and I wanted to go see what was happening.”
Arlene is president of the Ocean Mile (Fort Lauderdale) chapter of ORT, which supports a global education network driven by Jewish values. A highlight of the Moses’ 2017 trip to Israel was a tour of the ORT Youth Village in Kfar Silver, near Ashkelon.
This time, the couple is preparing for their free trip by choosing the places they’d like to see or revisit, including Jerusalem and Haifa. “I saw Fattal has hotels all over,” notes Herb.
Both born and bred in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Arlene and Herb wed 30 years ago. At the time she was a widow with two children, and Herb had one child from a previous marriage. “Now we have five grandchildren, from age 21½ to two and a half,” Arlene relates.
She worked in a hospital pathology lab for many years and then in a family printing business for 18 years. After she and Herb moved to Florida about 20 years ago, she helped him with his online business selling “office supplies, cleaning supplies — everything you need to do business except what you sell,” as Herb puts it. “I had a janitorial supply store and I began selling on the Internet about 28 years ago. I was a pioneer; I just about invented ecommerce.”
Arlene has racked up 8,000 volunteer hours at a local hospital and serves on the social committee of their condominium.
The couple had not been aware of ISRAEL21c until entering the contest. Now they receive our newsletter every week.
We look forward to welcoming our new readers to Israel.
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