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Our guest, Michelle Levitz, is a tour guide based in Zichron Yaakov, Israel. Michelle shares her fascinating background, growing up in a multicultural home in New Jersey with a Yemeni-Israeli father and a mother from the United States. Her upbringing in an open and welcoming Orthodox Jewish community contributed to her passion for guiding and sharing different cultural perspectives with others.

We discuss the challenges of leading multi-generational family groups and the importance of catering to the interests and needs of all participants - from grandparents to children. Michelle discusses her approach of blending educational content with hands-on, experiential activities has proven to be a successful formula for creating memorable experiences.

Lastly, Michelle also discusses the value of tour guides in Israel, highlighting how they provide important context, narrative, and flexibility that allows travelers to connect with the spiritual and cultural significance of the country's rich history and diverse communities. Michelle can be reached at mlevitz@gmail.com and her website is Michelle Levitz Tours.

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I had an interesting conversation with my friend and fellow tour guide Adam Wadell that touched on issues surrounding educational tourism as well as interfaith relations and guiding in the post October 7th world. In addition to our shared American upbringing, Adam and I have many things in common including an interest in environmental policy and a focus on educational tourism. We talked about our experience of working on programs that bring people to Israel to better understand the political reality here, the importance of education, and our hopes for the future.

In the intro to this episode, I mention a recent lecture that I gave about the genesis of liberal anti-Zionism that can bee seen HERE.

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In this episode, tour guide Haike Winter, returns to Tour Guide Confidential to share her experience of volunteering in a dairy farm during the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. Like all tour guides in Israel, Haike was left unemployed by the war that began with the massacre of October 7, 2023. A "milker" since the 1980s, Haike has volunteered twice for the cowshed of Nir Oz, a small kibbutz in the Gaza envelope that was devastated by the pogrom. This is the kibbutz from which the Bibas family (the red-headed children) were taken hostage to Gaza. Haike describes her volunteer experience, the state of the kibbutz and cowshed in the aftermath of the attack, and how this has strengthened her connection to Israel.