Dear Sirs/Madams,

My name is Sheng ( Simon ) Jin, an enthusiastic devotee of Jewish culture and history from Shanghai, China. My wife and I had a breathtaking and unforgettable trip throughout the Holy Land of Israel in April/May 2017. And here I’d like to share the stories of Mr. Haggai Golan, our tourist guide in Jerusalem.

When we first met Haggai, an IDF veteran and now having started new career as a tourist guide in Jerusalem, the first sentence we heard from him was “Welcome to Jerusalem, the eternal and undividable capital of Israel”, by which we could perceive strongly his feeling of patriotism.

During our visit of Western Wall & Tunnel, Davidson Center, City of David and Israel Museum, Haggai indicated profound knowledge and serious attitude to meet our request of better understanding the history back to biblical time, and we were so impressed by his narrative in both English and Chinese language! And during exploring the Hezekiah’s Tunnel and HaShiloach Pool, Haggai showed his full energy to climb and walk in the hill paths that we could hardly follow up his steps, even though I was almost 20 years younger than him!

Another short episode at Via Dolorosa: When we came out of Western Wall Tunnel and were wandering near Damascus Gate, I looked at a grocery booth owned by a Muslim lady. I couldn’t tell a name of a vegetable that I’d never seen. So I asked Haggai. However, when Haggai bended over to check it, the Muslim lady looked outraged and shouted to him “Go away! Don’t touch!” I was shocked by her behavior and explained “I’m a Chinese visitor! I just wanted my guide to tell me what the vegetable is!” But Haggai just shrugged and smiled and went away. I asked Haggai if he felt being insulted. His answer was so moving and gentle, “I don’t blame her…We are anyway the neighbors living in the same city…” Haggai had showed a spirit of tolerance, which is very much needed to unlock the dead knot between Jewish and Palestinian people under current situation!

One more touching moment was at Yad Vashem: at the Hall of Names, Haggai suddenly stopped narrative and started sobbing. He told us that he was thinking of his grandparents who lost their lives at Auschwitz. Much more tragically, by that time, all his uncles and aunts had already immigrated to Palestine. But one of his aunts, the youngest daughter of his grandparents, went back to Europe to look after his grandparents. Unfortunately, she could not have chance to escape Nazi’s hunt, and died along with her parents at the death camp… We felt at that moment our hearts were beating together with Haggai, and we appreciated him so much to connect us with the fate of Jewish nation so closely and gave us an unforgettable lesson!

Besides his professional guiding skill and impressive and touching stories, Haggai was so thoughtful that he prepared home-made mint tea for us every day! And he offered an extra and special night tour in the community of Mea Shearim for us to experience the Hassidic lives, which had turned my book knowledge into real life! More exciting, Haggai invited my wife and I to join the Sabbath dinner with his son’s family ( He was busy at that night and didn’t join us ) so that we had opportunity to witness how the modern orthodox Jewish observed the law told by Torah – another example for me making the “knowledge in book into real life”.

I hope that my above writing has presented vividly a real Mr. Haggai Golan, who I believe not only represents himself, but also a great citizen of modern Israel: Knowledgeable, persistent, diligent and dedicated, hardworking, tolerant, sympathetic and thoughtful. I know Haggai is applying for tender of ministry of tourism. I strongly believe that his understanding to China and good skill of speaking Chinese language would be attracting and servicing the Chinese tourists, and be contributing to the course of Israeli tourism!

Should you have any more questions, please feel free to contact me at my email address: simon@buyeetextiles.com



Thank you and best regards,


Sheng ( Simon ) Jin

Shanghai, China