Not Kosher

The Hilton's problems shouldn 't happen to a dog

Jewish religious orthodoxy and the pragmatic business of survival have always had a special kind of relationship in Israel, similar to that, say, between Washington and Moscow. But that detente has now suffered a severe rupture, and the cause is Jerusalem's four-year-old 420-room Hilton Hotel. The city's chief rabbi, Bezalel Zolty, 57, has yanked the five-star Hilton's certificate of kashruth, or kosher status. Reason: in his view, the hotel was violating the law of the Sabbath. As the agonized Hilton management knows all too well, the lifting of kosher status is a devastating blow in a country that annually receives half a million Jewish tourists, many of them devoutly Orthodox.

No Israeli religious leader had ever before enforced Halakah (Jewish religious law) in Zolty's fashion. Traditionally, a hotel qualified for kosher status if it adhered to Jewish dietary laws. Zolty insisted that hotels should strictly observe Jewish Sabbath law as well. Said he: "If there is no Sabbath observance, there is no kashruth. One can't have faith in one without the other."

Zolty, who was elected last November as Jerusalem's first chief rabbi in recent times, is demanding a hefty slice of faith from the hoteliers. The key aspect of Sabbath observance, so far as he is concerned, is the proscription on the holy day of "creative work." Among other things, creative work can include writing (even signing a hotel bill), turning on a light, and using a telephone. Basing his interpretation of the halakah on Leviticus 19:14 ("Thou shalt not curse the deaf nor put a stumbling block before the blind"), Zolty declared that "a Jew shouldn't sleep a sweet sleep in his hotel room while he is causing Jewish clerks to work on the Sabbath and make up his bill for him."

Zolty packaged his interpretation of the law in 20 demands that he presented last August to the 18 local hotels that seek kashruth certificates. Among the demands: use only automated equipment and non-Jewish employees to heat food and wash dishes on Saturdays; abolish Saturday check-out except for emergencies; and program hotel elevators on the Sabbath so that Jewish users will not have to push floor buttons. Zolty also requested the Hilton to eliminate Christmas and New Year's parties and decorations. "In a Jewish hotel, one doesn't hold Christmas parties or any parties for other faiths," he said. "How would it be if Jews went to the Vatican to hold their celebrations? What would Christians think of us?"

Zolty's definition of the Hilton as Jewish* came as a surprise to the hotel's manager, Dan Barkai. Indeed, half of the 180,000 guests that stay at the Hilton each year are Christian, and, says Barkai tersely, "we accommodate people from all faiths." Noting that 70% of the hotel's staff of 550 people is Jewish and that many Jews work on Saturdays, Barkai refused to accept Zolty's demands, warning that "hundreds of Jews will be forced to leave hotel service." Although five other hotel managers caved in, the others are backing Barkai. So is Shlomo Goren, the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, but his support has not changed Rabbi Zolty's view.

So far, both sides in the kosher crisis are sticking to their guns. Hilton managers insist that the hotel is still kosher by all reasonable standards. Short of getting Zolty ousted from office, an unlikely possibility, the hoteliers must pin their hopes on action early next year by the Israeli Knesset. (Knesset members, as it happens, have a special parliamentary dining room at the Hilton. Its kosher status is covered by a separate certificate of kashruth, and escaped unscathed from the squabble.) The parliament is scheduled to consider a bill taking away from local rabbinates the power of granting hotel kashruth certificates and giving it to an authority under the auspices of the government's more lenient Ministry of Religious Affairs. The bill is considered likely to pass. Until then, the Hilton will have to bear the crusty rabbi's seal of disapproval.

* The founder of the Hilton Hotel chain, Conrad Hilton, 90, is Roman Catholic; the Jerusalem Hilton is owned by four groups of American Jewish investors and managed by Hilton International, a TWA subsidiary.

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