ABSTRACT
The Israeli school trip has unique history and characteristics. The chronology of the local national hiking tradition dates back to the beginning of the Zionist movement’s activities in Eretz Israel. The first organised field trips started as early as 1903 in order to facilitate national meanings through the physical engagement with the land, a phenomenon known as “conquering the land through the feet”. The field trips were founded by a few teachers that belonged to the European Zionist pioneers that laid the foundations for the dominant Ashkenazi national culture. The annual school trip has become an integral part of the Israeli education system and a compulsory activity for all grades from kindergarten through the end of high school. The events that singled out aspects of ethnicity during the annual school trip were contesting, and in some cases reshaping, the national culture.
