Founded by a Fulbright scholar, synagogue preservationist and expert on the architecture of the synagogue, the heart and soul of Heritage Tours lies in themes of coexistence, tolerance, and cross-cultural interchange. And this approach translates directly into the experience of each and every client.

And thus, Heritage Tours was born. And has since become the leading provider of upscale Jewish heritage travel to Morocco, Turkey, Spain and South Africa.

Mr. Zack spent extraordinary amounts of time leading research expeditions to tiny villages from the Sahara to Transylvania. He studied, photographed and measured synagogues on the verge of ruin and advocated their preservation as living monuments to a world of coexistence and tolerance.

Jewish heritage is not to be seen in isolation. Just as the Muslim or Christian or secular cultural component of a given society is not to be seen without the contributions of its minorities.

It is well-documented that the Ottoman Empire never would have been the powerhouse that it was without its Jewish community; the same is true - but lesser known - of Morocco and even southern Africa. And in paradigm of Jewish-Muslim-Christian coexistence to this day is el-Andalus, where the three "People of the Book" produced one of the greatest civilizations this world has seen.

Jewish heritage is NOT about looking at monuments in isolation - it about understanding the cultural contexts surrounding those stones and the stories around them. About the local non-Jewish communities, about the evolving histories and roles of the Jewish communities, about the struggles and successes of each community and each family.

And about lessons we can learn for our own times.

And we want to bring that magic to you. We want you to meet the Berber Muslim man who preserved a mud synagogue in the Sahara single-handedly because he thought it was "the right thing to do". We want you to meet the newly re-emergent communities in Spain and speak with Christian families who are - after 500 years - discovering that they are of Jewish ancestry. We want you to learn of the key Jewish players in fighting the evils of apartheid. To meet Jewish communities and see medieval Jewish synagogues dating from the earliest years of the Ottoman empire.

Travel with Heritage Tours not to "see" Jewish heritage - but to feel it, learn it and live it.

He has conducted extensive research and lectured widely on synagogues and their meaning. His work as a designer, scholar and preservationist has received recognition.

He is the author of The Synagogues of Morocco: an Architectural and Preservation Survey (New York, 1993). He is a contributing author to Jewish Threads in the Muslim Moroccan Tapestry (Washington D.C., 1994).

His work in Morocco was the subject of a nine-page feature "Sacred Still" in the March/April 1995 issue of Historic Preservation and has recently been included in the photographic archive of the Smithsonian Museum.

He was the curator of "The Historic Synagogues of Turkey" at the Milton Weill Gallery at the 92nd St. Y in New York in late 1997, which has since traveled all over the country.

He is the author of "Where the Ram's Horn Sounded in the Land of the Sultans", a full-page feature in the October 9, 1997 New York Times.

Mr. Zack has a Bachelor of Science in architecture from the University of Virginia and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University, where he was a William F. Kinne Fellow. He is a registered architect in the State of New York.

Since 1986, Mr. Zack has been documenting and studying the Jewish sites of Morocco. He has chronicled over 200 synagogues, cemeteries, mellahs (Jewish districts) and other sites, compiling an extensive archive of over 10,000 photographs, now part of the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.

Prior to Mr. Zack's work, it was assumed by the dwindling Jewish community of Morocco that its patrimony of 2,000 years was long-vanished - remaining at best in legend or childhood memory. These newly-rediscovered synagogues have been recognized as an important part of Morocco's past by the Moroccan government and have become a source of a resurgent pride on the part of the Moroccan Jewish community.

Mr. Zack spearheaded an effort to ensure the survival of these sites through the creation of a Jewish Heritage Trail of selected sites to be restored, preserved, and developed as a series of small museums throughout Morocco. Mr. Zack has been involved with the restoration of synagogues in Fes, Tetuan and Tanger as well as an adobe synagogue in the tiny village of Arazan in southern Morocco.

He has lectured and participated in symposia at various universities and congregations throughout the United States as well as the Alliance Francaise, the Dahesh Museum, the B'nai Brith Klutznick National Jewish Museum (Washington, D.C.), the 1995 American Sephardi Federation convention, and the Jewish Theological Seminary. He has served as scholar for various Jewish tours and delegations to Morocco, including American Jewish Congress, World Monuments Fund, and United Jewish Appeal.

His research has been supported by Columbia University, the Institute of Sephardic Studies/ CUNY, the Maurice Amado Foundation, the Mitrani Foundation, the Jewish Heritage Council of World Monuments Fund, the Littauer Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation and the International Survey for Jewish Monuments.

He is a recipient of a prestigious grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.

Mr. Zack, as President of Heritage Tours, organizes cultural and private tours of Morocco, Turkey, Spain and South Africa an effort which brings tourist dollars to these countries and impresses upon the appropriate governments the value of maintaining Jewish historic sites as a part of their own complex histories and cultures.