Students in grades 5 to 7 in Jerusalem will soon begin a course sponsored by the municipality to learn more about their neighborhoods in the capital city and familiarize them with the work of tourist guides. The innovation is a joint effort by the municipality's education department and Yad Ben-Zvi, an institution devoted to the study of Jewish communities as well as of the land of Israel and Jerusalem. The course is open to students of schools throughout the capital and during the first stage, to take place at Yad Ben-Zvi, participants will be trained to be young heritage site guides. The aim is to have graduates of the course take tourists, family members, teachers and children through their neighborhoods and other important sites in Jerusalem and teach them about the importance of the sites. Students of the course will receive instruction in the geographical and historical heritage of the land and Jerusalem in particular, with special emphasis on the areas in which they were raised and schooled. The course will cover topics such as Jerusalem during the First Temple, Second Temple, the 19th century, the British Mandate period, the War of Independence in 1948 and the Six-Day War in 1967. For each topic covered, special landmarks in Jerusalem will be pointed out. Students will also learn about the people behind the names of streets in Jerusalem and the city's neighborhoods, and how they can help strengthen and support Israel's capital. The first course of this kind will open this coming school year within the framework of the "My Neighborhood" program, which is currently underway in several schools including the Frankel Masorti School, the Jewish Quarter State-Religious School, the experimental school in Kiryat Hayovel, and schools in the Gilo Gimmel and Gonenim neighborhoods. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat commented on the program, saying "We chose students who are interested in becoming guides and will tell the history of Israel's capital city, Jerusalem. The program combines the values of leadership, excellence, and love of the land and will help raise a new generation that knows its origins and destination." The training course will focus on the history of Jerusalem's neighborhoods from the time they were established and throughout the decades. Participants from the Frankel school in the French Hill neighborhood, for example, will learn about the neighborhood from the time of the First Temple era fortress and an ancient cave-based burial site which, together with other burial sites in the area, formed a ring of cemeteries around Jerusalem during the time of the Second Temple. Names of streets associated with the struggle to establish a Jewish home in the land, such as "Haganah" and "Etzel" (pre-1948 Zionist militias), "Bar Kokhba" (the leader of a Jewish uprising against Roman rule), and "Hama'avak" (the struggle), will be explained.
