I TRAVEL 1
Top Of The World
Continued from Page 70
1SALLYS DESIGN'
THE FASHION PLACE IN WEST BLOOMFIELD
PRE-HOLIDAY SALE*
Cashmere Swesters. . . . .30% OFF
. .30% OFF
All Leather .
Designer Suits . . . . . . . . .30% OFF
Lunch At The Ritz Earrings .. 40 % OFF
All previous Sales & Layaways excluded
HOLIDAY HOURS:
CROSSWINDS MALL
Mon. 10-8
Thes., Wed., Fri 10-6
Thurs. 10-8
Sun. 12-5
4301 Orchard Lake Rd.
W. Bloomfield
626-0886
Your JeepiSaab
ASK CRAIG ASTREIN!
About His VIP Half A Car
Saecialist
Utniied
THE S MART WAY TO Bum -v Down u 7 .:
1991 CPerokee
-\ Brakes)
*
Anti-Lock
14/ Orrant Th,,
B r nper
GET A NEW CAR
's44900* /m far
far
Tox 0 LAided
r-fuss
A
Joe Ricci Jeep/Eagle
° 1/N
Jeep.
Eagle
In Stock Now!
For Immediate
Delivery!!
'91 Talons
• '91 Cherokees
'91 Wranglers
• '91 Saabs
rh
There's Only 1
Five-Star
Jeep Dealer
Advantage:
Craig Astrein
18201 Mack Ave. • Detroit • 343-5424
PERSONAL
ATTENTION
TO
CORPORATE
GIFT SOLUTIONS
playirobil
er-
n!
M
pi-tt 1, .. : dio. , r, !I [61
glima,....110Limihodr,.
14T ' ---r •
fiTeman IF. HI',
0761:111'4111 1
For Hours Of Imaginative Playtime!
Years Best Selection .. .
Beat The Holiday Crowds
&
74 Dolt 's ad
719 SoUtet Sitofr
Mon-Sal 10.5, Ries & Fri 10-8, Sun 12.4 5 4 3.3i 1 5
3947 W. 12 Mile Rd. • Berkley
tea
Disc°1/11
0 ,4.0 0
Po r 8ags
Acc
(
erY
asion
Ritzy Bags
3001 W. Big Beaver Road, Suite 123 • Troy MI 48084
Handbags
For
The Classy Lady
737.5772 • 788-0942
3 1 3 - 6 4 9 - 1 1 1 1
By Appointment Only
JULES R. SCHUBOT CORPORATE DIVISION
72
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1990
kosher food, the chapel and a
mikvah.
Besides all this, the hotel
gives guests the chance to
meet and mingle with Jews
from other places. At any
given time, the guests can in-
clude Jewish tourists from
Australia, Canada, South
America, the United States.
"Every year we get more
and more tourists," says Mr.
Wagner, who owns and
manages the hotel with his
wife Ruth. It was her grand-
parents who first opened the
hotel in 1926; they wanted to
start a kosher hotel and chose
Grindelwald because of its
location in the heart of the
Swiss Alps.
Over the years, it has at-
tracted a wide assortment of
guests — most, but not all of
them, Jewish. They include
vacationers, visitors on
business, mountain climbers
and many who come to
celebrate Jewish holidays at
the Silberhorn.
The hotel has also hosted
its share of prominent Jewish
guests, including Am-
bassador Max Kampelman,
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak
Shamir, Secretary of State
David Levy, and Lord
Yacobovich, Chief Rabbi of
Great Britain, who's been a
regular at the Silberhorn for
years.
Some guests become so at-
tached to the hotel that they
choose to celebrate special oc-
casions here. Recently, a fami-
ly from Riverdale, N.Y., decid-
ed to have their son's bar
mitzvah at the Silberhorn.
Over 100 guests, including
the rabbi from Riverdale,
traveled from New York to
this small mountain town for
the occasion.
"The parents had come
here for their vacations, and
they loved it, so they wanted
to have the bar mitzvah here.
The reception was out in the
garden, with the mountain in
view, and it was beautiful,
just like a dream," says Mr.
Wagner, who still shows en-
thusiasm for the hotel he's
been managing for 20 years.
He never runs out of new
ideas to make the hotel a uni-
que culture center. Recently
he planned a Hungarian food
festival, complete with gypsy
band. "We imported the musi-
cians from Budapest, and for
ten days the whole hotel was
a festival," says Mr. Wagner,
who was born in Romania
and came to Switzerland
when he married Ruth Kahn,
a third generation Swiss Jew.
Besides managing the
hotel, Mr. Wagner is also an
avid promoter of Jewish
tourism to Switzerland. He
edited Swissair's guide to
kosher hotels and restaurants
in Europe; encouraged the
town of Grindelwald to
publish a special brochure in
Hebrew for Jewish tourists —
he's on the town's tourist
board — and has lectured in
Switzerland, Chicago, Boston,
Washington, San Francisco
and Philadelphia.
"By nature I'm an unof-
ficial diplomat. It's a hobby of
mine," Mr. Wagner says. "So
I travel a lot, and I like to in-
vite people to the Silberhorn."
His contacts range from
Joseph Gilderhorn, the
American ambassador to
Switzerland, to Mayor
Thomas Bradley of Los
Angeles.
When Mr. Bradley visited
Switzerland, it was Mr.
Wagner who took him up to
the Jungfraujoch and also
hosted a special reception for
him at the Silberhorn.
In return, Mr. Wagner was
a guest of honor when he
visited Los Angeles and gave
a talk about Jewish life in
Switzerland.
And it was Mr. Wagner's
contact with Czechoslovakian
diplomats that led to the
special Torah scroll that's now
He never runs out
of new ideas to
make the hotel a
unique culture
center.
in the ark of the chapel at the
Silberhorn. It was a gift from
the Jewish community of
Prague.
"I had invited the Czech
ambassador in Bern to the
hotel," he explains, "and he
told me that they had Torah
scrolls in Prague that weren't
being used."
After more conversations —
and a special invitation to Mr.
Wagner to visit Prague — the
leaders of the Jewish com-
munity of Prague decided to
make a gift of a Torah scroll,
which was presented at a gala
dedication ceremony at the
Silberhorn last spring.
When he's not involved in
special events like this, Mr.
Wagner is busy with the
details involved in running a
kosher hotel in the moun-
tains: checking on the meat
which he gets from kosher
butchers in Basel and Zurich,
getting ready for Shabbat and
Jewish holidays, and taking
care of the everyday needs of
guests.
"To cater to people from all
kinds of backgrounds and to
make sure they all feel at
home here, all under one roof,
that's what I enjoy most," he
says. "I like to think of our
hotel as a Jewish United Na-
tions."