Three of the greatest pleasures in life for cultured people are literature, travel and stimulating company. A Gil Travel Jewish literary heritage tour takes you, and your family or friends, to the heart of European cities like Paris, Berlin and Prague. You can explore the old Jewish neighborhoods and walk in the footsteps of great writers like Franz Kafka, Isaac Babel, Alfred Doblin, and the tragic teen diarist Anne Frank.
Our Jewish literary heritage is a treasure trove that opens the door to a new understanding of the European societies that our Jewish ancestors lived in, and the forces that shaped their existence – and ultimately ours. Gil Travel’s Jewish heritage literature tours are a wonderful opportunity to broaden your knowledge of Jewish culture and history. It’s an amazing feeling to walk the streets and visit the places that inspired generations of Jewish writers, then attend private lectures and archive and museum tours, before returning to the comfort of a luxury hotel with gourmet kosher dining!
Understanding Jewish Literary Heritage Tours
A Jewish literary heritage tour organized by Gil Travel is designed to allow participants to explore the lives and thoughts of famous Jewish writers by visiting the actual places where they lived and worked, and gaining insights into the cultures, environments and literary scenes that inspired their writing. The history of Jewish literature is very much the history of the Jewish people. Works by writers like Isaac Babel, Stefan Zweig, Franz Kafka and Heinrich Heine – as well as medieval Jewish literature and folk literature like Judeo-Tat tales – chart the Jewish people’s journey through the diaspora.
Jewish literature tours are ideal for anybody who loves reading, or who is interested in a particular writer – or even just a historical period or aspect of Jewish culture that a writer epitomizes. Gil Travel works closely with book clubs and literary groups (including synagogue book clubs, Jewish organizations book clubs, and sisterhood book clubs), as well as seniors’ organizations, to provide customized travel experiences that promote and preserve Jewish literature as an important part of our cultural heritage.
Book clubs that are focusing on a particular novel or writer can enhance the group experience and develop deeper insights by accessing YouTube films and using Google Earth to explore locations, but no media comes close to a group visit to a European city and a chance to walk through the old Jewish neighborhoods with an expert guide who shares your passion for Kafka or Mapu or Sholem Aleichem.
A properly organized tour creates a special atmosphere for book club members to explore the settings and inspirations behind the books they’ve read together and share their new insights and observations. Visiting the house where a famous Jewish writer grew up, or the cafes where he sat and talked with other members of the literary scene, can take group discussions to a new level. Exploring a city and gaining insights into its past can galvanize a shared book club experience.
Explore Family History or personal Connections through Literature
If your Jewish ancestors originated in Europe, literary tours are a great way to gain a deeper understanding of your own family heritage. A tour that focuses on Berlin’s Jewish literature or the Jewish culture of Paris, Kafka’s Prague or Babel’s Odessa can add valuable context to your ancestors’ lives. Activities that explore the novels and visits to real places can explain the world that they lived in with a depth, intimacy and level of detail that no history book or documentary can hope to replicate.
Key Destinations for Jewish Literary Heritage Tours
Gil Travel is highly experienced at working with clients to understand their expectations and create tailored itineraries that include even the most obscure literary travel destinations. Most book clubs and travel groups are interested in Europe’s major cities and like to draw on our specialist knowledge and local connections to really explore them in detail.
Explore Jewish Literary Heritage in Eastern Europe
Prague: Prague is not only one of Europe’s most beautiful cities, it was the birthplace of Franz Kafka, author of The Trial, Metamorphosis and the Castle. Visits to the Franz Kafka Museum in Prague and his childhood home can be combined with guided tours of the Josefov or old Jewish Quarter.
Warsaw and Krakow: Polish Jewry produced a wonderful intellectual and cultural tradition that lasted for centuries. Writers like Isaac Leib Peretz, Sholem Aleichem are among the best-known, but literary tours of Warsaw and Krakow will introduce dozens more writers and poets. A tour is especially interesting for students of Yiddish literature.
Explore Jewish Literary Heritage in Western Europe
Paris: France’s City of Light is synonymous with literature and was home to some of the world’s greatest writers. The vibrant Parisian literary scene was also part of Jewish culture in Paris and attracted talented Jewish writers like Irène Némirovsky, Benjamin Fondane, Elsa Triolet and Jean Malaquais.
Germany: Prior to Nazi Germany’s descent into barbarism, Berlin was home to some of Europe’s most famous Jewish writers. Döblin’s novel Berlin Alexanderplatz is one of the iconic novels of the city. Berlin was also a formative influence in the development of Heinrich Heine who lived and studied in the city. A heritage tour of Berlin’s Jewish literature and cultural history is a step back in time to a golden age for Germany’s Jews.
Amsterdam: The teenage Jewish diarist Anne Frank probably never imagined that she’d be remembered as a famous writer. Anne and her family hid from the Nazis in a secret Amsterdam refuge between 1942-44. Anne kept a diary of her experiences that was published after her death in Belsen concentration camp. The Anne Frank house is open to visitors and contains a number of poignant exhibits.
The Cultural and Emotional Impact of Jewish Literary Tours
Travel is always an adventure, and luxury travel is invariably a pleasure, but Jewish literary heritage tours take the travel experience to a very different level. Connecting with personal (and wider cultural) heritage by visiting actual sites and places can be a profound experience. Crossing the Atlantic and setting foot in the old Jewish quarters of Prague, Krakow or Berlin can be a deeply moving experience for many American Jews.
Where possible Gil Travel connects clients to local researchers who can scour the archives and put together family trees and lists of surviving places with family connections. Gil Travel regularly gets feedback from travelers who experienced a strong emotional reaction to walking through their ancestors’ neighborhoods, visiting synagogues where generations of their families prayed, or finding family graves and headstones in long-forgotten Jewish cemeteries.
Just visiting actual locations portrayed in your favorite books can be a very satisfying and fulfilling experience, especially when you share it with friends from your book club or seniors group. It’s a real pleasure to gain a deeper understanding of Jewish history and literature and all the tours can be customized to include meetings with local experts and scholars – people who share your passion for the subject and are delighted to meet fellow enthusiasts from the US.
Promoting and Preserving Jewish Culture through Literary Tours
We’re living in challenging times due to increased assimilation, new social media based youth cultures and decreased interest in reading, and also anti-semitism. Gil Travel is very conscious of the need to promote and preserve Jewish culture and structures its travel and tourism towards these goals. Jewish literary heritage tours are making a difference and the interest of visitors is contributing directly to the preservation of literary landmarks and sites. One of Gil Travel’s future goals is to generate interest in literary travel destinations and tours among young people, particularly college students, and preserve Jewish literary heritage for future generations.
Tips for Maximizing Your Jewish Literary Heritage Tour Experience
A Jewish literary heritage tour can be a life-changing experience and it’s important to get the very most out of your trip. Preparation is essential and it really pays to research individual authors and their works. This can be a lot of fun, especially if you’re doing it as a book club. We recommend creating suggested reading lists and collating background information to familiarize yourself with the writers and their historical context before the tour.
One of the advantages of a Gil Travel tour is the quality of the local guides, scholars and experts who can transform the tour experience. Everybody should feel comfortable and confident about participating in discussions, and asking insightful questions to improve their knowledge.
A well-organized tour can provide a wealth of new information and interesting experiences. It can take some time to fully process what you’ve learned and it can be really useful to present your travel experiences to your book club, including photo sharing, storytelling, and thematic discussions.
Follow up meetings at the book club (or your seniors or synagogue group) are a great way to build on what you’ve learned and tap into other people’s insights and thoughts.
There’s a lot to gain by discussing and sharing the tour’s impact on your understanding of the literature and its historical context.
Plan a Tailored Jewish Literary Heritage Tour
Organized tours of Jewish literary travel destinations can be one of life’s big adventures for bibliophiles and anybody who loves Jewish history and culture, or who wants to explore their own European Jewish heritage on a deeper level. Gil Travel has superb local connections across Europe and decades of experience of organizing luxury travel and customized Jewish heritage tours.
A well-organized tour, with a tailored itinerary, can be a profoundly satisfying – and surprisingly emotional – experience. It’s also an amazing way to take your knowledge and understanding of Jewish literature to a completely new level. Talk to Gil Travel today and tell us about your favorite Jewish writers and the places you’d like to visit. We’ll make it happen!
