INNOVATIVE KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER in Israel:

Israeli history lecturers go 'on the rails'

By Heather Sharp
BBC News, Modiin, Israel

"I'm not nervous, but I hope I won't feel nauseous," joked Professor Isaiah Gafni, as he prepared to deliver his slightly unusual lecture.

But once the commuters were settled, he gripped an upholstered seat back with one hand, two weighty tomes in the other, and launched with gusto into his exposition of the documentary evidence of the Maccabean Jewish revolt in the 2nd Century BCE.

Few of the passengers on the 0905 train from Modiin to Tel Aviv were expecting this.

But most seemed willing to hear out the bespectacled historian, as he re-examined the story, taught in Israeli kindergartens and schools, of the Jewish rebellion which is commemorated in the festival of Hannukah.

'Crazy idea'

Lecturers "on the rails" is an initiative launched recently by Hebrew University in Jerusalem, to bring academia to the general public.

[...]

This is a fun idea and I can see it working in Israel, where interest in history is so pervasive, but perhaps not in many other places.