Maybe it's the anthropologist in me, but until now I found it hard to imagine anything more banal as a subject of study than organized tours of Israel, let alone ones such as Birthright which are aimed at younger people from various parts of the Jewish world. The truth be told, most of us who do work in tourism studies, no matter how well-read theoretically or sophisticated politically, have a certain degree of contempt for tours and tourists. So what would the perspective be of such a study other than tendentious observations which are tediously critical, what I refer to as the “representation = bad” school of so-called critical theory, not to mention the flimsiness of the ethnography that typically accompanies such work, or the fact that one hardly needs to read past the first few pages, if that much, in order to know the conclusions? Needless to say, I found it quite surprising that Kelner managed to do what I thought could not be done—find something compelling about a phenomenon that seems utterly banal if not futile, namely the attempt on the part of diasporic Jewish communities to engage in a massive act of cultural intervention in order to affect, less the future of the state of Israel, than their own and the commitment of their youths towards Jewish continuity.
Compared to much that passes for contemporary field work, Tours That Bind is admirably rich ethnographically and the text is grounded in a very large sampling of data from research conducted over a good many years. Kelner tells us that the study is based upon initial fieldwork conducted from 1999 to 2004 (which included at least two teams of seven researchers) supplemented by the author's own participant observation, survey research of Birthright participants, and an examination of the material submitted by applicants to the program. The collected data formed the basis of a first draft of the study, along with subsequent research conducted between 2004 and 2008 that was intended to confirm or disprove the initial findings.
Despite the amount of data—including compelling qualitative material recorded through participant observation—the volume hardly rests on its descriptive merits. Quite the contrary. Tours That Bind is a work that is very much informed by theory, and because of it, Kelner has a good deal to say about diasporic travel, the experience of the “homeland” and the intended or purported impact upon participants. Examining material from other ethnic groups, Kelner points out that ethnic tours are very often organized under the auspices of official homeland agencies. In an age of globalization, diasporic communities constitute a potentially valuable resource for political mobilization and for the channeling of economic resources between homelands and the countries of residence of their migrating citizens.
The areas of theory most critical to Kelner's thesis are those that come out of tourism studies, especially performance studies and semiotics. In regard to the latter, as Kelner argues, “The differences that distinguish homelands from diasporic space are precisely what make travel there desirable” (10). Although those organizing the tours often have some notion that the homeland constitutes a living museum of ethnic culture which diasporans can experience, absorb, and bring back with them to reinvigorate their ethnic selves, the fact is that bringing such geographically separated people together through the tour is often quite jarring and serves to raise new boundaries between diasporans and residents of the “homeland.” As a result, Birthright tours do much less to create the kind of identification with Israel that would lead to a significant increase of immigration to the country—certainly from Jewish communities that feel themselves the least threatened by a hostile host society—than to prop up Jewish identity among the participants, and possibly their commitment towards Jewish communal life within the home communities.
Where Kelner is particularly sophisticated is in his assessment of the ideological work of the Birthright tours. Comparative research with other homeland/diasporic tours suggests the problematics of evaluating the reception of the experiences presented to participants against their intended impact. In regard to the political situation they will learn about, tour participants come with a good deal of information about the Israel-Palestine conflict, including that imparted to them through the media, with the use of graphic images that are not at all flattering to Israel. The guides, too, are hardly singular in their political positions nor are they required to be so. Moreover, Kelner argues that tourism is an inherently multivocal activity; that new political understandings emerge among participants through experience and discussion; and that the relative agency of those who partake in tourism, whether as guides or as tourists, protects them from ready indoctrination. So, the pedagogical components of the trips leave ample room for a liberal critique of Israel but always within a Zionist perspective, namely, that the Jewish people has a right to self determination in the land of Israel. Surprisingly, participants' sense of their own agency makes them somewhat more amenable to accepting the positions of their guides. And the very fact that positions critical of Israel are voiced by the guides rather than experienced as part of the trips and/or articulated by Arabs somewhat lessens their ability to affect the feelings of participants towards Israel and the occupation or its treatment of Arabs and other minorities within the country. At the same time, the hedonism the groups foster acts as a check on the articulation of too much emotional valence in regard to politics. As Kelner writes, “In a group committed to fun, politics is a downer and politics perceived to be ‘angry’ is toxic” (153).
Kelner argues that for tour participants the primary way of engaging Judaism, certainly within Israel, is through consumption. Indeed, far more people in the group he observed bought religious objects such as mezuzahs and yarmulkes than attended Sabbath services. This symbolic consumerist approach to Judaism also resembles the way participants respond to Israel. As Kelner notes, homeland tours fetishize place and such symbolic imposition may very well linger in the minds of participants long after the completion of the tour. Of course, the idea that Israel's landscape is infused with meaning, especially Jewish meaning, is a direct contrast with the landscapes of the diaspora. At the same time, the expectation on the part of tour organizers is that experience with this fetishized landscape will somehow either translate into an Israel-committed diaspora, or a Jewishly committed one. Kelner argues that the most likely outcome of the trips is not greater Jewish institutional affiliation or religious practice but rather a continuation of consumer practices that are already a cornerstone of the trips themselves. Moreover, that same penchant for symbolic consumption will continue to affect tour alumni's relationship to Israel, privileging an aesthetic commitment to the land rather than the moral commitment the organizers had wished for. Nonetheless, one lasting impression is likely to be of the experience of traveling as a group and a certain lingering nostalgia related to that experience—something participants might seek to recapture in the future through further travel to Israel.
Perhaps the most critical experience participants have through these tours is the opportunity during group discussions to frame and reframe their Jewish selves. This is facilitated in part by novel and intense activities such as rafting, hiking and camel riding intended to create a feeling of community and camaraderie. And because they are told well in advance of the tour—by siblings and peers—that this will be a life-changing experience, participants frequently indicate as much in their journals and group discussion. But as Kelner points out, it is impossible to say with any certainty how these trips will change future behavior. All we can determine is how they work as agents to reframe individual pasts and lives, discursively and momentarily, altering the sense of what it means to be Jewish, to be committed to the Jewish community, and to be at home with other Jews both in Israel and abroad.
