Meeting Tombstone Gunmen

We arrived in Tombstone, an old wild-west city full of cowboys and tombstones with interesting stories.

We stopped a cowboy to get directions to the Jewish cemetery, and then asked if we could take a picture with him. He asked us if we want the teffilin to be in the picture. Minutes later he was wearing those very teffilin.

The cowboy then introduced us to his brother who didn’t have time to put on teffilin, because he was running late for his gun show. They invited us to join, but we told them that yeshiva boys are afraid of guns.

Our next stop found us in Sierra Vista, where we found many more civilized Jewish people, including a Vietnam veteran, the chairman of the Republican party of the entire county, and a motorcycle guy.

We went to a Jewish ceremony welcoming back a Jewish soldier from Afganistan, but the soldier didn’t make it to the event, due to injuries that he got on the 25 hour trip back on a plane that didn’t have any chairs. We explained about the 3 weeks to the 6 people who attended.

Bisbee was a town that felt like old Europe, with a touch of southern culture thrown in. There we met two elderly women whom we spoke to for over 2 hours.

In Douglas, we found Jews in the local Jewish cemetery, but that’s about it.

In Casa Grande (no, we did not leave the country) we were very inspired by a woman telling us of her economic struggles, losing both jobs, their house, cars, cell phones, and other neccessities. Nonetheless, she was very optimistic and had a great attitude, telling us that everything was in the hand of Hashem.

We went to a most interesting place called Patagonia, with a modest population of 800. There is Jewish person there who found a way of making money by opening a center called “the tree of life center,” The idea is to stay slim and healthy by eating a very limited amount of food, no animal products, and fasting twice a year for 7 consecutive days, only drinking juice. This is in addition to all kinds of spiritual stuff, including going to the “mikva” and meditation.

We concluded our shlichus by visiting an 88 year old veteran of world war two. We were very inspired by all the stories he told us of his adventures in Japan and of the many times Hashem saved his life.

We hope this will be the first of many more chances to do the Rebbe’s shlichus and bring moshiach closer.