The following article was written about him in "The Daily News."

Secret mission of mercy

by Matthew Kalman

(Special to The Daily News)

Jerusalem - At 77, Martin Silver as the oldest cyclist this week in a grueling 250-mile bike ride from Jerusalem to Eilat to mark Israel's independence day and support Hazon, a Manhattan-based environmental charity that promotes Middle East peace.

Silver has been making difficult journeys to Israel for half a century. In May 1948, as a cadet at the Maritime College in the Bronx, he helped smuggle 2,800 destitute survivors of the Nazi Holocaust from Europe to the newborn Jewish state.

This week, Silver spoke publicly for the firs time about the dangerous and illegal undercover mission.

President Harry Truman had declared a ban on aid to either side in the war over the establishment of Israel. Silver, then 20, volunteered to crew a ship from his native Brooklyn.

Coincidentally, the ship was a former U.S. presidential yacht, the Mayflower. "The Mayflower was built in the 1890's and designed to hold 150," Silver told the Daily News. "It was lying in a junkyard up the Hudson River. It was bought clandestinely by American Jews. We sailed from the Brooklyn shipyard under a Honduran flag with a false manifest without clearing emigration."

"It took a month to cross the Atlantic and reach Marseilles, where Jewish Holocaust refugees were in displaced persons camps. We ripped out the fittings and installed wooden bunks five high and four deep, enough for 1,400 refugees. It looked like a concentration camp."

"We bribed the French officials and smuggled the refugees to a small port called La Ciotat. They were taken in a three-hour trip using 50 trucks between midnight and 4 a.m. The ship was so crowded that there was no room for food. All they had was coffee served from a metal bucket and bread. There were no meat or vegetables."

"Four days into the seven-day journey, the fuel pump broke down and w had to hand-pump the ship. Within sight of Haifa, an Egyptian plane circled the ship and dropped two bombs. Fortunately, they didn't explode."

"As we reached land, the teenagers aged 16 to 18 were recruited into the young Israeli Army on the spot. The War of Independence was in full swing."

"My family thought I was crazy," Silver remembered, "but I was proud."

I arrived back in New York in December 1948 and got on with my life. I didn't talk about it for 50 years."

Silver became an engineer. He now lives in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts.

The Hazon ride has brought together 107 American, Israeli and Palestinian bikers to promote the environment and cooperation toward peace. They include Broadway and TV star Mandy Patinkin and his son Isaac. The ride will raise $400,000 for the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in southern Israel. Silver has pledges of $4,000 in personal sponsorship.

"I'm a keen skier and leisure cyclist. I ride about 130 miles a week in the season. I came on this ride because I believe there is potential for real peace here," Silver said. "I support anything that can be done to help Arabs and Jews to study together."