By Antony Lerman | 26/08/2010
One of my most lasting childhood summer holiday memories is of Mrs Cohen, the wife of the proprietor of the little kosher hotel we stayed at a few times in the early 1950s in Torquay on the English Riviera, singing ‘Eliyahu hanavi' in a shrill soprano at the weekly havdalah ceremony. And I can still remember the sensation of the molten candle wax hardening on my fingers and the intoxicating aroma of the spice box as it was handed around.
Back then there were numerous kosher hotels in holiday resorts all along the south coast from Kent to Cornwall. In those post-war years, as Britain emerged from austerity and the family's East End tailoring shops began to thrive, we must have frequented quite a few such establishments. Margate, Brighton, Bournemouth—and of course Torquay—were the preferred destinations. Some, like the Strathmore on the Devon coast, were relatively modest. Others, like the Cumberland in Dorset, attracted the aspiring Jewish middle classes. The most expensive places were beyond our reach, though I was never conscious of lacking any hotel comforts.
Unashamedly, I felt like my sweetest dreams had come true when we stayed at such hotels. And part of it was being immersed in a sunny, light-hearted but all-embracing Jewishness—yiddishkeit more properly—which promised and delivered fun. For short breaks, we would often be a largish party: our family of four, my maternal grandparents, assorted aunts, uncles and cousins. There was always someone to play with in the sand or at the ping-pong table. Photos of the adults taking the air (usually bracing) along the promenade seem to speak of wartime cares being blown away. The men are in light-coloured suits; the women in bold, floral frocks. We went to services regularly and there was something extra special about putting on a crisp, clean white shirt for Shabbat in a hotel. We ate only strictly kosher food and I was only able to indulge my passion for fresh cream-filled chocolate éclairs after waiting at least 3 hours after a fleishich lunch.
There are still a few kosher hotels along the south coast of England, but the Jewish hotel culture of the 1950s and 1960s has gone. Like other families, with the coming of affluence, we began to go further afield—on our own. Belgium, Holland, then the south of France. But my mother would always seek out a synagogue for Shabbat, even though we didn't stay in kosher hotels abroad. As travel to Israel became cheaper, and flying to the Costa Brava and the Costa del Sol cheaper than staying in England, the meaning of holidaying Jewishly changed. For many, it was enough to cluster together with other Jews—and not be coy about eating calamari. For my brother and I post-Bar Mitzvah, the delights of summer camping with the socialist-Zionist youth movement replaced the decadence of the chaperoned dinner dance, though we still occasionally joined our parents for a few days when, now so rarely, they spent a week or so in Bournemouth.
Today, it's a more strictly orthodox clientele who use kosher hotels, in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. But it's also the strictly orthodox, I like to believe, who have pioneered a new form of Jewish holiday-making, one more suited to the internet-world we live in. I first noticed this more than 15 years ago, when we still lived in the heart of Welsh-speaking mid-Wales, where my wife taught at St David's University College. One summer day I was astonished to see a mini-convoy of ramshackle Volvos estate cars and people carriers full of eager Haredi children and bustling parents driving through the little town of Lampeter. They were taking over part of the campus accommodation for the summer—creating their own Jewish environment wherever they went.
And this is what we can all do today: take our Jewishness with us on holiday, if we wish, rather than only go for ready-made Jewish holiday environments. That might mean seeking out Jewish cultural heritage sites at or near your destination, or being conscious of the Jewish historical resonances of the place you are visiting. So many of us have our wi-fi computers and BlackBerries with us that we're also just a click away from the latest Jewish news and views. When you've young children in tow, making new friends is virtually mandatory, and on many occasions they turn out to be Jewish, giving you further dimensions of other people's Jewishness (and your own) to explore.
But as with all holidays, they must come to an end. I hated the loading up of the old Vauxhall Cresta with sand-encrusted buckets and spades and bulging suitcases. Within a few days or so it would be back to 4-times a week cheder classes. No more havdalah ceremonies in Torquay with a crowd of happy holidaymakers. At least Mr and Mrs Cohen would both be standing in the drive of the Strathmore Hotel waving goodbye and expecting to see us again the following year.
