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As if to illustrate this point, on most Jewish agency-sponsored family tours the parents sit together in the front of the bus while the kids gather in the back, entertained by a counselor.

But it doesn't have to be that way, says Vicky Kelman, director of the Jewish Family Education Project of the S.F.-based Bureau of Jewish Education.

"Israel works a kind of magic. In many ways it feels like home. And yet there are things from Israel you want to take home," she says. "Israel is our history. It's walking where Abraham and Sarah walked in the Negev. It's a part of you.

"Israel makes our book-learning real in a way nothing else can."

To prove her point, Kelman, working with the S.F.-based Israel Center, led a group of 22 family educators from day schools, congregations and Jewish community centers through the Holy Land last month.

Missing were the typical visits to Tel Aviv and Haifa. Instead, the group stayed mostly in Jerusalem and the north — embarking on 10 days of activities that would appeal to both grownups and children.

The trip was funded in part by a grant from the Helen and Sanford Diller Family Philanthropic Fund of the Jewish Community Federation's Endowment Fund.

Israeli educators from Melitz-Oren, Camp Ramah and Keshet Family Tours led the group through Yad Vashem, on a scavenger hunt in the Old City, on hikes in the desert and even a stroll through a grocery store. An educational and/or discussion component accompanied each activity.

For instance, in the Galilee, after reading the diaries of the Israeli pioneers — European teens who built a country out of a swamp — educators discussed their own passions and motivations.

In addition, each day one member of the group acted as a journalist, recording the day's activities. Each teacher will receive a copy of the diary.

All of these experiences could easily be part of a family vacation, Kelman says.

For example, kids can act as the eyes — noticing and narrating details they see — while parents can write the text of the journal.

Eric Keitel, a fifth-grade teacher and director of family education at Brandeis Hillel Day School in San Francisco, especially enjoyed the noncompetitive games that participants played in the Old City.

Perched on rooftops overlooking all four quarters of the Old City — Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Armenian — Keitel and his companions divided themselves into teams. The players then sketched what they saw in each direction on a large sheet of paper divided into four quadrants.

"This would be great for kids. Can't you just hear them? `I see a cross. I see a flag.' And then they make guesses about which quarter [each object] is in," Keitel says.

Another Old City activity involved following a map through the walled maze: Go down the steps. Turn Right. Go up the street. Notice a distinctive crack in the wall…

"The kids navigate and the parents explain," Keitel says. "Kids love that.

"We know people learn by doing and experiencing. So almost anything can become an educational opportunity," Keitel says. "Bobbing in the Dead Sea can be a lesson in physics. Kibbutz activities like creating a garden are wonderful too. Even a hike in the Negev. Feel, smell, listen" to the places where our ancestors lived, he suggests.

That connection to the land and its people is what differentiates a family trip to Israel from a vacation to Yosemite or even France, Kelman says.

"Israel offers a groundedness in tradition," she says, adding that "Israel is a laboratory too. What better place than Israel to try out what it feels like to wear a kippah all day or walk everywhere on Shabbat?"

Kelman admits that price, as well as the need for intense planning, make group family trips a lofty goal.

She estimates cost at about $2,000 per person. In addition, to make an Israel family trip more than just a "good time had by all," pre- and post-trip study sessions and gatherings are necessary.

By meeting several times for study and discussion before the trip families, educators and guides can form a "community" and plan an experience that is geared toward their specific needs and desires.

Kelman predicts that the first family trips will take place in the summer of 1998.

For now, Kelman and other educators are investigating funding and scholarship sources and the possibilities of dollar-matching and savings programs like those in place for teen trips to Israel.

"Everybody can't afford everything. We know that," Kelman says. "However we need to bring this to the front of the family agenda. We need to make it a natural thing to do…get married, have a family and take it to Israel one summer."