Tour Guide Confidential

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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 [email protected] 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. 

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Anita Andziak is a Swiss-based tour guide and tour leader, PhD candidate and Virtual Tourism expert. Her passion is the combination of artificial intelligence and tourism. We sat down in January of 2022 to talk about the promises and pitfalls of Virtual Reality both during the pandemic and as we stride into the metaverse of the 21st century.  Based on her research and professional experience, Anita discusses the ways in which customer behavior, cultural changes and the geopolitical situation are pointing to new directions and tourism trends. I invite you to listen to this episode about VR tourism, where I push back a bit at the techno optimism surrounding this cutting edge technology while also learning about many of the benefits that this growing sector in  global tourism offers. To contact Anita and to explore Dokodemodoors where she is employed click on the respective hyperlinks.

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 In this episode, I sat down with Aliza Bellehsen Avshalom in her beautiful home in the Galilee for a wide ranging discussion based on her decades of experience as a tour guide in Israel. Among other topics, we talked about Aliza's fascinating familial connection to Israel, growing up in New Jersey and what led her to train as a tour guide. We discussed her background of working with youth tours and educational tourism; environmental tourism and her love of hiking and the Land of Israel; cultural and ethnographic tourism and her desire to connect with her neighbors in a very multicultural and religiously diverse Galilee; the role of religion in tour guiding and her experiences as a religious Jew guiding devout Christians; multigenerational family tours; and the role that gender may play in tour guiding. In addition, we discussed guiding styles, changes in tour guide training, studying the Talmud and what makes Israel special. Aliza can be reached directly either by email at: [email protected] or through her excellent "Israel Paths and People" website where you can see the gamut of the fantastically interesting tours that she offers. 

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In this episode, Yoni Shapira shares his rich, decades long involvement in tourism. He recalls how, as an oceanography student, he entered into this field as well as his long model making career or “life in miniature” at Mini Israel and elsewhere. Most importantly, we talked about the split between Guides focused on Incoming Tourism and those who work with the Domestic Tourism market and how this led to the creation of the organization Moreshet Derech or the Israeli Incoming Tour Guide Association that Yoni currently heads. We spoke about the difficulties of this position in unprecedented times and the organization’s attempts to lobby for compensation for tour guides. As part of this we also had an in-depth discussion on the difference between incoming and domestic tourism and whether domestic tourism should rightly even be considered tourism. We discussed how guiding Israelis requires a completely different skill set from guiding foreigners and why it can often be so challenging in practice. Lastly, among his many talents Yoni is an excellent researcher and scholar and he recounted how he discovered the hotel where Mark Twain was based in Jerusalem in 1867 and how this was the impetus for his book “Tourists, Travelers, and Hotels in 19th-Century Jerusalem.” You can reach him through LinkedIn or by email at: [email protected] 

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In this episode I met with Tamar Linchevsky, a consummate storyteller who has been guiding for some thirty years. Unique in her approach to guiding, she takes her guests on inner and  outer journeys of discovery based on the ideas of Joseph Campbell's archetypal "Hero's Journey".  In our conversation, we discuss the current challenges and Tamar shares some of her own inspirational journey as well as the role that archetypal stories play in our lives. In addition,  I provide the latest update on the tourism sector in the episode's introduction. Specifically, I discuss the government mismanagement of the sector and the current challenges surrounding the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. Tamar can be reached at [email protected] or through her webpage at https://www.tamlin.co.il/en/. 

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In this episode, Tour Guide Confidential Host Dr. Eyal Dujovny has a conversation with Amir Katz and talks about his background and upbringing, how he got into guiding and what kind of a guide he is. Dr. Dujovny explains the impetus for this podcast, the way in which it was a Corona-times project and the importance of building a digital library that is an oral history of these trying times and episodes that serve as a calling card for guides. Moreover, he talks about his favorite places to guide, favorite groups to lead and recalls some of his more interesting guests. He discusses his decision to live in Israel and what is unique about guiding there – whether it is the wide variety of people, cultures and religions or the fact that it is such a misunderstood place. Lastly, he discusses his academic background and how he sees his role as a tour guide less as someone who can share facts and more as a cultural broker that brings people together. You can contact Dr. Dujovny through the Tour Guide Confidential website, by mail at [email protected] or by Facebook at “Israel with Eyal”. 

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I sat down with Elinoar Nitzani to discuss the fascinating trajectory that eventually led her to a career as a tour guide. A polyglot who guides in four languages, Elinoar shares her interesting perspective as someone who has, from an early age, lived in various places around the world. Passionate about the natural world, Elinoar relates how she pursued a degree in agriculture and how this eventually led her to the budding new field of agricultural tourism. As a leader in agricultural technologies, Israel has become a Mecca for those interested in the latest innovations in food production. Elinoar, with her deep knowledge of this subject, is uniquely placed and at the forefront of this new niche in tourism. Lastly, we spoke about the role of guides as ambassadors for their countries, the challenges and advantages of guiding as a woman, and the ongoing corona crisis. Elinoar is available at [email protected]. 

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In this episode, I sat down with Ori Unterman, to discuss her rootedness as a 7th generation Jerusalemite and her passion for guiding in this truly unique, complex, and holy city. Few guides know the city as well as she does, and we discussed what is special about guiding in Jerusalem as well as how the city – which is usually heavily touristed – has weathered the ongoing corona crisis. In addition, we raised the issue of gender and how it can affect the choices that guides make when it comes to the types of tours that they guide. Lastly, we discussed Ori’s recent exciting project of live tours in the Mahane Yehuda Market as well as had an in-depth talk about the advantages and limitations of Virtual Tourism. You can contact Ori by [email protected].