Chanukiot in the Old City - Beit Shmuel Tours

During this past Chanukah, our family joined a Hebrew tour that explored the Chanukiot found in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. It was lovely to walk through the Jewish Quarter in the evening hours and see the various outdoor chanukiot on display and even join in some Chanukah singing. While we probably could have wandered through the Jewish Quarter ourselves, our tour guide clearly knew all the nooks and crannies.

The tour was offered by Beit Shmuel which is affiliated with the World Union of Progressive Judaism. While I enjoyed what we saw on the tour, I felt that the tour was clearly geared towards secular Israelis, and as such, the tour content was a bit too basic for me. More upsetting, however, was that the tour guide made us feel a bit out of place among the other families, who were all Israeli, despite that we did not request any help with the language nor did we have trouble comprehending. I plan to do some of Beit Shmuel's other interesting Jerusalem tours to determine if my somewhat negative experience was simply, as I hope, an anomaly.

Beit Shmuel - www.beitshmuel.com - 02-620-3461 - tours can be booked through the website