Resorts Find Travel Niche for Passover

c. 2006 Religion News Service (UNDATED) It’s an emotional moment in the Passover seder, when Jews pray that they will be able to celebrate “next year in Jerusalem.” But “next year in Acapulco” might be more likely for many Jewish families, a growing number of whom are traveling to exotic vacation spots to celebrate the […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) It’s an emotional moment in the Passover seder, when Jews pray that they will be able to celebrate “next year in Jerusalem.”

But “next year in Acapulco” might be more likely for many Jewish families, a growing number of whom are traveling to exotic vacation spots to celebrate the holiday that commemorates Jewish freedom from slavery.


A spate of tour operators have carved out a niche for Passover travelers, organizing luxury tours to the top vacation spots in the world.

Jews have traveled away from home for Passover for decades. A generation or two ago, there were only two locations that drew great crowds _ the Catskill Mountains in New York and Miami Beach.

But today, Jews can travel to Spain, Italy, Mexico, the Caribbean and various U.S. hotspots, knowing that they will be able to both enjoy a luxury vacation and observe the Passover holiday within the strictures of Jewish law.

Stanley Bernstein, a New York City lawyer who travels with his family for Passover, says his trips are divided 50-50 between a religious occasion and a family vacation.

As a child, Bernstein went to the Catskills or the Jersey shore with his family. But in recent years, he’s taken his family to the Bahamas, Aruba and this year, to Scottsdale, Ariz.

On the trips, “there’s time for everything,” he said. “You’re with your family wherever you want to be. You don’t long to go home and struggle and cook and clean.”

Passover, which begins at sundown on April 12, is one of the most important holidays on the Jewish calendar and commemorates the hurried exodus from Egypt. Tradition holds that Jewish slaves did not have enough time to let their bread rise, so now Jews eat only unleavened bread, or matzah, for the eight days of the holiday.


As a result, Passover requires a tremendous amount of work and preparation to host the seders _ the festive meals that are observed on the first two nights of the holiday _ and adhere to the dietary requirements for the duration of the holiday.

Meticulously cleaning the entire house, removing any traces of leavened products, retrieving dishes reserved specifically for Passover and preparing meal after meal using Passover recipes is enough to make anyone feel stress instead of peace during the religious festival.

So for many, the answer is to pack up their families and leave town.

“The greatest gift a husband can give a wife is to take her away for Passover,” said Jeanne Litvin, who is a manager at Passover Resorts, a tour company that is operating Passover programs in Florida, California and Nevada this year.

Instead of toiling at home, women _ who typically report feeling more of the burden of preparing for the holiday _ can enjoy themselves, their families and the holiday.

“If you ask my wife, it’s not a 10-day vacation, it’s a 2-month vacation,” said Raphi Bloom, the CEO of Totally Jewish Travel, London-based tour company that also has offices in Boston and Tel Aviv.

The strict requirements of Passover are the reason tour operators, as opposed to travel agents, are the ones booking the trips.


Each tour operator coordinates with a “Rav HaMachshir,” or supervising rabbi, who observes the hotel as it prepares to accommodate a kosher clientele. Pots and pans need to be dipped in boiling water, new dishes must be provided _ some hotels with multi-year Passover contracts keep a separate set of Passover dishes to use from year to year _ and the kitchens or banquet facilities need to be “kashered,” or brought up to kosher standards.

Some tour operators bring separate kitchen trailers to the resorts to ensure strict kosher adherence. Most, however, work with the resorts to ensure that resort facilities will be operational.

“We want people to feel that they’re getting the hotel’s level of cuisine that just happens to be glatt kosher,” said Litvin, using the term “glatt” that refers to the highest standard of kosher law.

Only the first two and last two days of Passover are “sabbatical” days, meaning that they carry the same prohibitions against working as the weekly Shabbat (Sabbath).

This year, Shabbat itself falls on the third day of Passover, which leaves three full days with no particular religious obligations. That means a family staying at a resort for the holiday has that time to swim, scuba dive, play golf, take day trips or do anything else to enable them to take full advantage of the resort.

On those days, the tour operators usually also provide entertainment, which can range from stand-up comedians to sunset cruises to hot-air ballooning to karaoke contests.


These trips, however, are not for the budget-conscious. Bloom estimates that a family of four can expect to spend $7,000 to $8,000 for the trip, which doesn’t include airfare. He has seen some families spend upwards of $40,000 to bring extended relatives to the resorts. Other tour operators said it’s not unheard of for families to spend more than $3,000 per person for the trip.

There are no available statistics on how many Jewish families travel for Passover each year, but at least one sociologist is not surprised by the trend.

“People are traveling more, period,” said William H. Swatos Jr., a sociologist at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. “Why wouldn’t religious reasons be as legitimate as any other reason to travel?”

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Swatos studies religious and spiritual travel and has a forthcoming book on trends in modern pilgrimage travel. He says the “democratization” of travel, through the Internet and a growing number of options, makes it an open market for combining vacation plans with religious or spiritual observances.

“People want to combine their religious experiences with other things,” he said.

KRE/JL END ROSSI

Editors: To obtain a graphic showing a map of various Passover destinations to accompany this story, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.

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