Once we had a firm commitment that Ray O’Canto was coming to Israel to film his television show “Dining Out Along The Road” we set out to arrange and produce something unforgettable. We wanted to expose Ray and his US Audience to some of the best food and wine in Israel but also to help tell the real story about what’s happening in Israel and it’s definitely NOT apartheid.

So we continued our habit of walking the city streets but now we had a laser-like focus. We began telling restaurant employees and owners that we were scouting locations for an American television program which piqued everyone’s interest and made the process much easier. It was our first glimpse at the power that media credentials might provide.

Ray and his team arrived on August 31 and we hit the ground running. After picking them up at Ben Gurion, we drove and hour and half north to Galilee where our friend Chaim Malespin, director of The Aliyah Return Center, provided a lakeside villa for 2 nights. We got an early start the next morning and headed over to Binyamina where Oded Shoham would give us a tour and tasting at the winery of a founding father of Israeli wine, Yair Margalit.

Well, after 6 whirlwind days, we completed the first Israel edition of “Dining Out Along The Road”and it could not have gone better. Becky and I went to bed each night, exhausted, but grateful that the schedule we arranged had gone so well. Ray, Adolfo & Evan experienced Israel in a unique and powerful way. Most tours of Israel revolve around ancient biblical sites which are life-changing experiences and we were never the same after our first trip with my brothers in 2010. But we think it’s just as important to expose people to modern Israel so they can meet and experience the people who are actually building this country.