Sara Goldsmith - Israeli Tour Guide
Israel has a special magic about her. People come and they never want to leave. We become addicted to her beauty, her vast history, her culture, and her people.
Israel is unique, and people from around the work travel thousands of miles and many hours to learn her history and explore her land. Tourism is one of Israel’s most flourishing industries, and to be a tour guide is to represent Israel and share all of her beauty with the world.
Today we want to introduce you to a very special Israeli tour guide, whose story of falling in love with Israel is similar to so many of ours!
Meet Sara Goldsmith, a licensed Israeli tour guide currently living on Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, a kibbutz in Northern Israel!
How it all began
"I was born in Chicago and made Aliyah with my parents as a child. I have always had a love and passion for Israel, and I love sharing my passion with visitors. Already in high school, I knew I was meant to be a tour guide“.
Although not always a tour guide, Sara was always in the tourism business. After she married, she and her husband moved to Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu and settled down. Sara spent her years working around the kibbutz in various positions, but the most memorable was her position coordinating Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu’s tourism sector through a program called Bio Tour. She helped create programs and coordinated visits for both tourists and Israelis alike. After years of service to her home, Sara realized her true passion is in guiding people and opened up her own private tour company.
Sara works with a range of visitors who come to learn about Israel, including families, synagogue trips, church trips, business people, couples, pilgrims, and Birthright groups.
Watch Sara speak about Israeli agriculture on a Christian TV network!
What is your favorite place to show tourists?
“There are a lot of places that I love to bring customers to, and it's hard to pick a favorite – Jerusalem is pretty obvious, as is Masada and Tel Aviv, but I am always really happy when I get to bring tourists back home to Sde Eliyahu, to Bio-Tour, the tours I helped to create for my home kibbutz!
There is something so special about going home to where your tour guide lives. We create relationships with the visitors we guide. They become my friends, and I want to show them my life, my home.”
Bringing them to her kibbutz shows tourists another side of Israel they may not be familiar with as well. Sde Eliyahu is the first kibbutz in Israel to incorporate innovative organic farming and organic pest control! Sara is able to show people the ‘Innovation Nation’ side of Israel. It's no secret that Israel is agriculturally and environmentally, at the top of the charts.
Watch Sara speak about Beit She'an, an ancient city up north!
A fun fact about Sara
Besides being a licensed tour guide, Sara is also a chef, so food is always an important part of her tours. She believes that to get to know a country you not only have to tour it, you have to taste the local foods too!
But most important to Sara are the stories. The stories are what people remember, and so Sara sees herself as a storyteller. Through stories, a tour guide can inspire people to dive in just a bit more, to go beneath the surface. Sightseeing should be an “insight” seeing tour.
Sara wants people to leave with more questions than they came with. Explore more. Be curious. Go deeper!
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