Cruising The Mediterranean

Jewish Week
Gabe Levenson - Travel Writer
05/04/07

Observant travelers can now sail virtually all the world’s seas. The glatt kosher voyages initiated in the United States by Lotus Tours some 25 years ago are now available on a number of cruise lines. In some instances, frozen kosher meals are brought aboard and heated in microwave ovens, but more and more vessels are now kashering portions of their kitchens and offering their passengers freshly cooked meals everywhere from Antarctica to Zanzibar.

This spring and summer, most cruising will be on the Mediterranean — a “Jewish lake,” in effect, since King Solomon sent his vessels westward to the Straits of Gibraltar 3,000 years ago and since Jews from ancient Palestine established themselves in communities on both the northern and southern shores of the sea. American Jews can travel by ship to Israel, Alexandria, Rome, Dubrovnik, Istanbul — to ports now as open to the Orthodox as the streets of Williamsburg.

Among the travel agencies offering glatt kosher, round-trip Mediterranean cruises is Kosherica: Aug. 14 to 21, Barcelona, Mallorca, Tunisia, the island of Malta, Palermo (Sicily), Genoa, Barcelona; Aug. 27 to Sept. 3, Venice, Bari (Italy), the island of Rhodes, Dubrovnik (Croatia), Venice.

Among the highlights in Barcelona are the kosher wines cultivated on the city’s Montjuic (Mountain of the Jews) and a visit to Placa d’Ann Frank. In Valletta, the capital of Malta, visitors can have a “welcome” meeting with the tiny Jewish congregation and a walk to Ggontija Temple, probably the world’s oldest. In Venice, passengers can explore Europe’s oldest ghetto, dating from 1516.