Riding For
A Cause
Team Alex conquers
tough Israeli terrain to
help Alyn children.
BETH BRANDVAIN
Special to the Jewish News
e should have been
exhausted — it was 2
a.m. Eastern Standard
Time. We were jet
lagged, we had spent the night in a
Youth Hostel (four to a room) and we
had just completed a steep nine-mile
climb on our bicycles. But this was
not the time, nor the place, to be
tired.
As we enjoyed our breakfast with a
view of Haifa bay in front and
Lebanon to our right, the forbidding
Carmel Mountains beckoned from the
south for the next few days of our
ride. The six members of Team Alex, a
group of Oakland County cyclists
dedicated to honoring the memory of
Alex Graham of West Bloomfield,
knew that this bike ride would be
exceptional.
We were in Israel, we were riding
our bikes and we were engaged in the
mitzvah of raising funds for Alyn
Hospital, Israel's only comprehensive
pediatric and adolescent orthopedic
and rehabilitation center. Could it get
any better than that?
Actually, it could. During the course
of our five-day, 300-mile journey that
began Nov. 2, the 158 participants in
Wheels of Love saw a "different" side
of Israel. Beginning in the northern
Israeli community of Ma'alot and end-
ing with a celebratory victory recep-
tion at Alyn hospital in Jerusalem, we
rode through forests, up mountains,
on roads, next to borders and up more
mountains. We even rode through an
Arab village. In spite of the terrain, the
Israeli drivers and what you read in
the newspaper, we felt completely safe
and secure.
The occasional rest stop offered the
opportunity for riders to regroup, to
get to know each other and share sto-
ries of what brought them to Israel
and to this ride. The lunch stop was
also the chance to join a minyan and
daven Mincha.
RIDING on page 50
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