3/5/99

Have lokshen, will travel

    When the Millers pack for a trip, it's like nothing you can imagine. Not many tourists head to the airport with six suitcases filled with 150 loaves of bread.
    David and Bracha recently retired after a long career as tour organizers for English-speaking Israelis. They've been just about everywhere from Xian to Jackson Hole, Wyoming; South Africa to the Canadian glaciers.
    And naturally, they always pack a cutting board.
    The Millers' tours were strictly kosher, giving Orthodox "Anglo-Saxim" a chance to travel without worry. "People relied on me," says David, a native of Baltimore. "If I say it's kosher, it's kosher."
    Their last trip, in August, took them -- and 170 people -- down the Volga. "We chartered a ship in Russia, and kashered it ourselves. Of course, the Russian sailors with us had to eat only kosher." It was an ironic quirk that Shabbat was planned as a travel day. "We were on board the whole day on Shabbat, because we're not allowed to stop or get off."
    Unless they were going to a place where they could find dependable kosher catering, David always brought along a few things from his Netanya home. "I had with me a bag with all the knives and serving implements and a cutting board. I'd give it all to the cook. Either they provided throwaway dishes and plastic cutlery, or they had to have new sets of dishes.
    "At the Shanghai Hilton they have our dishes locked up for us. We've been there 11 times.
    "We brought frozen meats already prepared, but we were able to eat  breakfast and fish dinners. They would show me the fish so I could identify it, to make sure it had fins and scales, and I saw them prepare it.
    "About five years ago, we were in Beijing on a Friday night, eating gefilte fish, with the lokshen kugel -- and Peking duck. Can you imagine?"
    Who else would import Peking duck to Peking from Hong Kong? Turns out that, according to David, "Hong Kong has one of the finest kosher restaurants in the world."
    With pain mixed in with the fond memories, Bracha remembers "magnificent, magnificent Yugoslavia, which is now in ruins. We felt it was prettier than Switzerland."
    David was the first director of AACI in Netanya. He started out in the travel business by doing familiarization tours of Israel. Then he organized a group to the Dead Sea, ventured to Eilat and then Egypt, until he hooked up with Eddie Freudmann of International Travel, who suggested the Millers do an overseas trip. From then, the world's been their oyster (you should pardon the expression).
    His clientele is not the sort to go home with half the hotel room stashed in their luggage. "Eddie went to Seville, in advance of a tour, and he came across a gorgeous hotel. They only had 30 percent occupancy, and Eddie said he had a group of 40. 'Where are you from?' they said. Tel Aviv. They refused to take us. 'We will not take an Israeli group,' they said, because they had had bad experiences. It's nothing new. But the local tour agent said she'd be responsible for us, she knew us. So we got to that hotel, and they were very formal with us. There was a scarcity of waiters, bellhops and so on. But after 24 hours, they changed their attitude completely. They didn't know what to do for us."
    A Miller group came across the phenomenon in Turkey. "There was another Israeli group in the hotel," recalls Bracha, as David winces at the specter. "When we went down to breakfast, there was such a commotion, Israelis were hollering all over the dining area. We were very upset."
    There's no place like home, even when you're abroad.
    You have to think of everything when you're leading a Sabbath-observant group. Automatic doors, for instance -- they can't be used on Shabbat. When the hotel staff would see a bunch of Jews loitering at the door, they knew it was time to step outside for some fresh air. Magnetic keys are also a problem, and of course, elevators. In China, they had to hire a bellhop to sit outside the elevator throughout Shabbat and ferry group members up and down. 
    "We're different, but they accepted that, with the greatest respect."
    David recalls a Shabbat in China, when "a manager comes over to me after supper and says, 'Mr. Dave, you're driving my waitresses crazy.' 'What's going on?' He says, 'number one, you come out to light candles, and they see only the women are lighting them, they don't know why the men aren't. And they don't see the Buddha at all. Then you get up to make a toast [kiddush], and everybody else gets up but they don't have a glass of wine in their hand, only you.' But what really drove 'em nuts, 'when you got up to go to the bathroom, they all followed behind you!' We had gone to wash before the bread."
    China is still getting used to the concept of Orthodox Jewish tourists and their funny rituals, which don't usually include a Buddha. "We stood on the Great Wall, all of us with these Mao hats, and we davened mincha.
    "One time, in Xian, we had nine men on Friday night. We wanted a minyan. And there was a rule in my groups, you do not wear a kipa when you're out walking. I don't want to draw attention to the fact that this is a Jewish group. A hat, fine; bareheaded, it's up to you. So one guy from the group says to me, if you'll permit me to wear a kipa in the lobby of the hotel, I'll find you a Jew. He puts a kipa on and starts walking back and forth. Sure enough, someone comes up to him and says 'are you Jewish?' We had our minyan. He was from Japan."
    Closer to home, "we were in the Sinai Desert and we started to daven. And the Israeli guide says to us, 'it doesn't bother me, but you should know, you're facing Mecca.' "
    Usually people look forward to retirement to start touring. Not the Millers. Now the only traveling they do is to North America, to visit their children -- who, thankfully, supply kosher plates and cutting boards and bread.