One hundred American teenagers and 84 Israeli teenagers were interviewed by open-ended questionnaires in order to study their attitudes toward death, holding variables like religion, socio-economic status, and education constant. All the respondents are Jewish, members of a youth movement, high school students, and are fifteen to sixteen years old. The results show a strong tendency to avoid discussions and thoughts about death, more so by the Israelis. Death is strongly feared and associated with war and car accidents, more so by the Israelis. Americans associate army service with death. Death is generally viewed as physical and spiritual cessation of life. The avoidance approach and fear of death that were found suggest the need to offer special courses on man and death in high schools.

This dissertation based on a fieldwork conducted among Czech Jewish youth during a ten-days educational touristic program Taglit-Birthright explores production of transnational space of mutual belonging. The transnational belonging to Jewish collective is produced through particular physical space of Israel through practice of tourism in collective constructed by the programme as a collective of common origin based on "blood ties". I examine participants' tourist bodily experience, performances, emotions and attitudes as a site of production and reproduction of transnational space using a concept of embodiment as ways in which the individual grasps the world around him/her and makes sense of it in ways that engage both body and mind. Transnational space created throughout the programme becomes socially constructed emotional category of "ahavat Israel", "love for Israel" that might conceal its political implications. Keywords: Transnationalism, diaspora, tourism, embodiment, Jewish youth, Taglit-Birthright, Czech Republic, Israel

This dissertation based on a fieldwork conducted among Czech Jewish youth during a ten-days educational touristic program Taglit-Birthright explores production of transnational space of mutual belonging. The transnational belonging to Jewish collective is produced through particular physical space of Israel through practice of tourism in collective constructed by the programme as a collective of common origin based on "blood ties". I examine participants' tourist bodily experience, performances, emotions and attitudes as a site of production and reproduction of transnational space using a concept of embodiment as ways in which the individual grasps the world around him/her and makes sense of it in ways that engage both body and mind. Transnational space created throughout the programme becomes socially constructed emotional category of "ahavat Israel", "love for Israel" that might conceal its political implications. Keywords: Transnationalism, diaspora, tourism, embodiment, Jewish youth, Taglit-Birthright, Czech Republic, Israel