This week, I proudly graduated from the Taglit-Birthright Institute for Tour Educators. For those not familiar with the Birthright programme, it facilitates a short trip to Israel for young Jewish people from around the world. The mechanics involve some support from the Israeli government, wealthy philanthropists and local Jewish communities, so that the participants themselves do not actually have to pay. Since its creation in 1999, over 400 000 participants have come to Israel through the programme.

A few years ago the organisers of the project established the Institute for Tour Educators, designed to improve the quality of the guides who accompany the groups. It offers a full tour guide course, or alternatively a three week seminar for those recently qualified, or a week seminar for experienced Birthright guides. The objective is that in a couple of years, all Birthright guides will have gone through the Institute (the figure stands at about 80% at present).

I like the idea of Birthright and am keen to work with the groups; on a more practical level they represent a significant proportion of tourism in Israel (and many of the groups still ran despite the security situation in the summer). I also felt that although the Ministry of Tourism course had given me a great deal of knowledge, it had not really equipped me with many practical tools on how to guide in the most engaging and interesting way. All of these reasons led to me applying to participate in the seminar this summer, and I was grateful to be accepted.

We were a small group of around 25, a majority native Israelis but also some immigrants whose origins lay in South & North America and the FSU. I was the EU representative! There was a broad range of religious perspectives, from Haredi to ideological secularist; the political spectrum among the participants was also far from narrow.

The course consisted of three separate weeks, spread over June, July and culminating just now in September. We covered a wide range of material, from practical advice on logistics and group dynamics, to training on public speaking and leading discussions, to sessions on how to build our guiding around a theme and connect the various sites we would visit throughout the trip into a coherent narrative.

I was very pleasantly surprised. Stereotypes about Birthright do exist, but it was great to see that there is no message proscribed from the management at the top that we have to deliver. The way we as guides, or indeed educators, as we are now trained to be, deliver the content is entirely up to us. Indeed there are also no obligatory sites, although for various reasons most of the groups do follow a similar itinerary.

The seminar also included a Shabbat together, where we talked about how to manage a Shabbat on Birthright, and experienced one ourselves. It was very interesting to hear and learn from the different perspectives in the group, it was clear that shabbat was a meaningful experience for all of us, but the ways in which it was so (family, prayer, beach or hiking in nature, for example) varied significantly. The nice thing was that all were open-minded to learning from the other, it created a very nice atmosphere. The food wasn’t too bad either!

I really enjoyed the seminar. The other participants were great – energetic, thoughtful, passionate people. We will definitely stay in touch and continue to learn from each other in the months and years to come. The sessions were really interesting, and in many cases extremely helpful. I know have many new tools and ideas about how best to show this country to visitors, and to help them engage with it in a meaningful way. On a more personal note, it was a bit like a return to my FZY days, back in the world of informal education. I even had some teachers from my time on the Machon!

Not only was the seminar helpful in a theoretical way, it was also great practically. We had the opportunity to meet various organisations that operate the Birthright trips (the central staff does not actually run any of the tours), and I even have my first booking for a Birthright group over the new year. Here’s looking forward to many more!