Review I received on Amazon.com says it all.

I confess that "Leaving Home, Going Home, Returning Home" is a book that I normally would not read. I am a web designer by trade and a techie book author as well (How to Start a Home-Based Web Design Business, 4th (Home-Based Business Series)). A book about a guy's journey to Israel didn't seem to match my normal pattern of technical tomes. But when I picked it up and thumbed through it, I found myself settling back in my easy chair starting the first chapter. By time I had read a few chapters, I felt the book warranted my full attention.

Alster taught me more about Israel, its people, culture, and history than I had ever been aware of before. I was able to view it through the eyes of someone who was willing to give a non-judgemental panoramic view of a culture that I previously only knew superficially. Through his eyes, I was able to see a part of the Jewish history that allowed me to understand more than I ever did before.

I remember in the early 1990's when I watched the televised version of Iraq shooting scud missiles during the Gulf War. It was a low-impact experience so many miles away. However, as I read about Alster protecting his daughter and family as he could hear the scud missiles just outside his own home, it became very real to me. This was not just a crazed dictator firing random artillery into the desert -- this was a real threat to real people! Seems obvious now but it took the skilled writing of Alster to bring me into the house with him and his family, feeling each painful explosion. By this time, I couldn't put the book down.

This book was written in a style in which I feel I have a better understanding of why so many of my Jewish friends talk respectfully about a desert land so far away. I understand it through a glimpse of someone with American values growing up in a Jewish household. And through someone who, forsaking all he grew up with, moved to a land of his heritage to make a new home. And then when he decided to return to the US, it made me think of it as the modern day equivalent to the 1915 book "Acre of Diamonds" (Acres of Diamonds: -1915).

If you are looking for a well-written book on a young man traveling to Israel and back, you can't go wrong with this one. It is educational, entertaining, and inspirational.