ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the expressed and implied ways persuasion can systematically build ideology in tourist experience. It examines how the rhetorical qualities of the American program Birthright Israel work to influence participants' ideas and feelings about the State of Israel and their personal Jewish identities. The chapter lies in the belief that rhetoric's of tourism are understudied, especially as they relate to individuals' abilities to render place-based judgments. The tour creates an extraordinarily effective site for concentrated, persuasive experiences, and individual trips can be used as case studies to examine how performance and persuasion intersect. Top-down notions of ideology are not sufficient to explain diverse experiences of touring; a strong per formative component animates tours. The chapter argues tourism performances are also far from top-down. Embracing a theoretical construct in which guides resemble speakers and tourist's audience members, tourist bodies are themselves used to complete ideological arguments. The chapter employs the methods of participant observation, interviewing, and discourse analysis.
