The Israeli teacher-guide: The emergence and perpetuation of a role

The Israeli teacher-guide performs functions associated with tiyulim—special walks in Israel aimed at the promotion of getting to know one's native country, which are organized by public, non-commercial agencies. The Israeli teacher-guide is socially defined as an agent of education and culture rather than of leisure and entertainment. Most of his role performances are carried out during walks with various groups of casual participants. During these walks he is both the navigator and interpreter of the scenes and their meanings. On the background of the history of tourism in the Holy Land, both the emergence of the Israeli teacher-guide role and the persistence of the public demand for tiyulim and for the organizational and interpretational products of the teacher-guide, associated with tiyulim, are described in this paper. These phenomena are explained by the special peculiarities of the “Israeli condition,” which cause many to seek a sense of belonging to the Israeli land and soil and by the idea prevailing among the Israeli educational elite that tiyulim and the contents delivered during them by the teacher-guides, are appropriate means for arousing this feeling. It is hypothesized that the tiyulim may be looked upon as components of the Israeli civil religion and thus the teacher-guide is a kind of civil religion mentor.