Millennium Celebrations a Sensitive Issue in Israel

It’s the Holy Land, the place “where time began,” in the grand phrasing of Israel’s Tourism Ministry. What better place to celebrate the arrival of the year 2000 than here, at ground zero?

But there’s a small problem.

The New Year’s holiday is viewed in the Jewish state as a thoroughly Christian event and one to be scrupulously avoided by religious Jews. Although New Year’s Eve parties have begun to catch on lately among young, secular Israelis, for the vast majority in this country, Jan. 1 is a day like any other; the Jewish new year, known as Rosh Hashanah, is observed in the fall.

What’s more, the century will make its much-heralded, long-awaited entrance smack in the middle of the Jewish Sabbath, a particularly awkward turn of events for would-be celebrants. Any hotel or restaurant here that is certified as kosher risks losing its license if it marks the New Year in any way, or breaks the rules of the Sabbath in its eagerness to accommodate non-Jewish or secular guests.

Tourists Will Be Looking for a Party

The unfortunate timing has created a dilemma for Israeli hoteliers and other tourism industry officials who hope to benefit from the crowds expected during the millennial year. Citing a lackluster marketing campaign by the government and security concerns of would-be visitors, Israeli tourism officials have lowered their predictions for the number of visitors in 2000 from about 6 million--equivalent to the state’s population--to about 3 million. But thousands of tourists will undoubtedly already be in place when New Year’s Eve rolls around.

And at least some of them will probably be looking for a party.

“It is a double jeopardy,” lamented Jonathan Harpaz, the longtime director of the Jerusalem Hotel Assn., a trade and lobbying organization of 38 kosher hotels in Jewish West Jerusalem. “We always get a warning about Christmas and New Year from the rabbinate [Israel’s Orthodox Jewish authority], that we should not allow any festivities on those days. But this year--1999--it also falls on the Sabbath. It’s very difficult.”

Now, however, after more than a year of negotiations involving the hotel industry, government officials and representatives of the rabbinate, a partial New Year’s solution appears to be in the works--at least for West Jerusalem, where the problem is likely to be most acute. Jerusalem’s special religious significance means that Jewish laws are interpreted much more strictly here than in other Israeli cities, but its many churches and shrines are also likely to draw perhaps the largest, most eager crowds of millennial tourists.

An Exception for Handel’s ‘Messiah’

Under the emerging compromise, hotel guests and others in Jerusalem will be able to go to the city’s convention center on New Year’s Eve for a performance of Handel’s “Messiah,” or can arrange to rent halls or rooms there for celebrations of their own. The rabbinate has agreed to allow the use of sound equipment, which is itself a violation of the Sabbath, but will not allow any food to be served, since a rabbi cannot be present to ensure that it’s kosher.

At the hotels themselves, there are to be no special New Year’s decorations or signs in public areas, just as there can be no evidence of the Christmas holiday the week before. The hotel association is still considering whether to organize a concert at the convention center for Christmas Eve, which also falls on a Friday.

“Of course, we don’t like the fact that people cannot have food at the convention center for New Year’s, but it’s a Jewish state and we have to follow the rules,” said Harpaz, who helped negotiate the deal. “But at least it’s clear now that we are not the only ones who understand the necessity of doing something for the tourists on this day. I think it’s very nice of the rabbis that they understand it as well.”

So sensitive is the issue, however, that some hotel managers were reluctant to discuss the compromise for fear that any publicity might spur the religious authorities to retract permission to use the convention center.

Others, asked for specifics about how the deal would work, said they purposely did not make many inquiries, offering several Hebrew variations of the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” theme.

“In the army, if you’re going out on patrol, you never ask whether you have to take your kit bag or not, right?” one said. “This is the same.”

Late last week, at the urging of hotel industry officials, the rabbinate made another concession, agreeing to allow celebrations and religious observances inside the hotels, as long as they are held in private rooms and do not disturb other guests.

Hoteliers in East Jerusalem, which are mainly owned by Muslim or Christian Palestinians, have their own headaches. Many decorate their buildings for Christmas and New Year’s but typically lack the public space necessary for large gatherings.

“We’re not going to be able to benefit from the problems with New Year’s on the west side,” said Hani abu Dayyeh, the co-owner of a tourism company and two hotels in East Jerusalem. “Unfortunately.”

Maintaining a kosher certificate and keeping on good terms with the local religious authorities are extremely important to hotels in West Jerusalem. At some of the bigger hotels in Jerusalem, religious Jews make up as much as 40% of the clientele, a market that would disappear if the hotels lost their certification, Harpaz said.

Besides, “people expect Jerusalem to be kosher,” said Omri Krongold, general manager of the five-star Laromme Hotel. “This is one of the reasons many people come over here, to feel closer to Judaism. They want to observe the rules.”

Rules Puzzle Even Some Jewish Visitors

But Krongold said even Jewish visitors are sometimes puzzled by the fact that Israelis regard the New Year holiday as a Christian celebration and often call it “Sylvester,” apparently after St. Sylvester, a 4th century pope whose feast day is Jan. 1. Last year, the hotelier had to explain to a Canadian family that although they were welcome to celebrate the bar mitzvah of their son in the hotel, they could not put up a banner proclaiming “Happy New Year!” as part of the decorations.

“The hotels have to be very careful about these issues,” said Shabtai Shai, until recently the director general of the Israeli Tourism Ministry. “If they push things too much, they could lose the cooperation of the rabbinate on a daily basis. They could win the battle over New Year’s but lose the war.”

Despite the special heed taken, the compromise for New Year’s in West Jerusalem is under attack--from the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, which considers it an unforgivable violation of the Sabbath, and from militantly secular politicians, who say that Christian and secular visitors should be allowed to celebrate the New Year as they choose.

In the middle is Rabbi Yehoshua Pollak of the local Jerusalem religious council, who helped negotiate the deal in his capacity as the head of the department overseeing kosher observance in the city.

“The [ultra-Orthodox] circles attack me for having reached an agreement supposedly facilitating potential violation of the Sabbath, and the secular . . . try to accuse me of stopping tourism to Jerusalem,” Pollak said.

“Whoever organized the Gregorian calendar didn’t take into consideration that this event would fall on a Sabbath 2,000 years later,” he said. “If it had fallen on a Tuesday, things might have been a bit easier.”