Kashrut demands get stricter every year

"Every year the level of koshering utensils, which were never koshered in the past, rises; demands to replace utensils that were not replaced in previous years, which adds up to expenses of millions of shekels," said an Eilat hotelier this week, complaining about the stricter requirements of making Eilat hotels kosher for the week of Passover.

"In previous years we were able to reach agreements, but this year the Eilat Religious Council is puting on more pressure and larger monetary demands than in the past," said the hotelier, complaining about the requirements.

Hotel managements say that things were very different just a few years ago, when they were allowed to conduct the Passover Seder using microphones, and now they may not. They also cannot play music in the lobby on the holiday any longer on Fridays and holidays. The hoteliers are complaining this year in particular of the unvoiced threats by the Religious Council to take away their kashrut certificates.

The Israel Hotel Association estimates that the cost of making a hotel "Glatt Kosher" - a higher standard than normal - for Passover is NIS 80,000 for a small hotel, without its own kitchen, all the way up to NIS 1.2 million for the large hotels.

Hotels must invest in cleaning and making the kitchen and the rest of the hotel kosher, all under the eyes of kashrut supervisors. The main expense is in the kitchen, which requires a thorough cleaning of all storage areas, cooking surfaces and ovens, refrigerators and all utensils and equipment. Most serving and eating utensils are replaced with new ones for the holiday.

Altogether, some 300 Israeli hotels will spend about NIS 80 million in becoming kosher for Pesach.

In Jerusalem the preparations are, of course, stricter. Another region that attracts a large religious clientele over Pesach is the Dead Sea area, where entire hotels are often converted for only religious guests for the entire holiday.

"There is a significant difference between Jerusalem and Eilat, since Eilat cannot exist without entertainment in the lobby and by the pool," said the head of the Eilat Hotels Association, Shabtai Shay. "The burden is felt more in Eilat, since it is a city where most vacationers are nonreligious, and not religious families coming for the Passover Seder. They come for a vacation and suddenly there are restrictions on entertainment on Friday night and it is even not allowed to buy vegetables with bugs. The Religious Council constantly raises new demands. Shay said he is in favor of kashrut, "but we are not in favor of turning [Eilat] into Jerusalem or Bnei Brak."

The head of Eilat's municipal kashrut department, Rabbi Arnon Azoulay, admitted that "every year we add a little." He said that had they required the hotels to do everything at once 14 years ago, it would have been prohibitively expensive, and that they have been adding a little every year - and in two years the work will be finished. Azoulay says most of the expenses are minimal for a large hotel.