Two Jewish youngsters’ pilgrimage to Masada for their b’nai mitzvah has been featured on an upcoming BBC programme.

The show, Sacred Wonders, follows US siblings Mia and Jacob Zaretsky as they prepare for their bar and bat mitzvahs at home in suburban New Jersey, before travelling with three generations of their family to Israel.

They then travel to the holy site, in the Judean Desert, where 960 Jews are believed to have committed mass suicide during the Roman siege at the end of the First Jewish-Roman War, almost 2,000 years ago.

Their journey forms one segment of the second episode of the series, which will air on BBC One on August 14.

Sacred Wonders is a series of case studies into “what people do for faith” in some of the world’s most spectacular religious sites, including the Golden Temple of Amritsar and Cambodia’ Angkor Wat.

Interviewed at home in New Jersey before the pilgrimage, Jacob said: “I feel like becoming a man on top of my ancestor’s dead bodies is very important.

“I think it’s very important to [our parents] that we get bar and bat mitzvah’d in an extremely holy place.”

The audience sees both children complete their b’nai mitzvahs atop the ancient fortification, before parents Craig and Lisa pay tearful tributes to their offspring.

Craig thanked Mia, who had recently survived a childhood cancer, for “teaching us what it is to be strong”.