Neil Alpert:  

July, 2010 : I've lived in New Rochelle (Westchester County), NY for the last 20 years. After I graduated from Nanuet High, I attended Wagner College on Staten Island. I received a B.S. Degree in Economics. Wagner was some of the most important years of my life. It was there I matured into a young adult and became closer to my religion as a result of spending several summers going to college in Israel. After I graduated from Wagner College in 1976, I moved to Israel and I lived there close to 4 years. It's too long a story to explain why I went, but the short version is after my second year in college, I spent the summer there and it left me needing to return and seek out my heritage. It was truly a life changing experience that left me deeply connected to Israel and the Jewish People. It turned into a life journey of discovering my Jewish roots, who I was, and figuring out my place in this world - all at the tender age of 20. I was first a student there studying all about Israel and Judaism. Eventually, I became an Israeli citizen and then served in the Israeli Army. My life's ambitions at this time was to make the Israeli Army my career. But I got injured and that killed my dream of a military career. My years in Israel were very precious to me, yet also bittersweet. I lived there all alone with no family and it could get quite lonely at times. Israel is the most fascinating place on this earth. I met some of the most incredible people you could imagine while living in Israel and it molded me into the person I am today. It would be another long story to explain why I returned to NY, but I did shortly after my army service. I returned to NY in 1981 and wound up back in Nanuet unti...Expand for more