See what happens at Neiman Marcus after dark.

ATLANTIC CITY page 109

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THE JEWISH NEWS

Private Banking
& Investments

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Presented By

JET

September 21
6:30 p.m.
Neiman Marcus

An off broadway theater in West Bloomfield

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Address

lunch daily, offers assorted deli
specialties.
Those hungry for Eastern Eu-
ropean cuisine can find it in At-
lantic City, just a half block from
the boardwalk at 119 South
Kingston Avenue. Here Jack and
Rose Zawid preside over an old-
fashioned dining room in the
same roomy building where they
live upstairs.
Shabbat dinners are the spe-
cialty here. Everything is pre-
pared right on the premises, with
Rose serving as master chef and
Jack as all-around supervisor.
From Eastern Europe to the
Middle East is just a short drive
on the culinary route. Back in
Ventnor, just across from Lox,
Stock and Bagels, is the island's
only glatt kosher restaurant.
The Jerusalem Kosher Restau-
rant opened just a year ago at
6410 Ventnor Avenue. It's owned
and operated by Jacob Ben
Shitrit and his wife Suzanne,
both native Israelis. They first

came to Atlantic City primarily
to visit relatives. But then, they
decided to stay and try their luck
at opening their first restaurant.
The attractive, 104-seat restau-
rant is supervised daily by At-
lantic City's chief Orthodox rabbi,
Mordecai Weiss.
The menu features such Mid-
dle Eastern specialties as hum-
mus, falafel, souvlaki, Israeli
salads and more. Besides the
food, there's also the distinctive
Israeli ambiance. Every evening,
Israeli music plays on the sound
system. Israeli art and artifacts
hang on the walls. And Jacob and
Suzanne Shitrit, plus family
members who often help out, in-
cluding six year old son, David,
eagerly converse in Hebrew with
any Hebrew-speaking patrons.
Whether it's a synagogue near
the beach, or souvlaki and strudel
in a kosher seashore restaurant,
it's a safe bet that Atlantic City
has much to offer Jewish trav-
elers. ❑

Where Are
The Tourists?

Israel's lucrative tourism industry is suffering from
one of its most difficult seasons.

Please make checks payable to JET.
Send to:
JET • 6600 West Maple Rd. • West Bloomfield, MI 48322-3002

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0

n the small beach at Ein
Gev, lounge chairs lie emp-
ty at the peak of Israel's
tourist season.
Like the lounge chairs, thou-
sands of hotel rooms across the
country are vacant this summer.
Israel's tourism industry has
been suffering a major crisis since
March of last year, when a wave
of bus bombings ravaged the
country's growing international
acceptance as a choice travel spot.
Israeli-Palestinian clashes last
September and a deadlocked
peace process this year have kept
the industry from bouncing back.
The tourism industry enjoyed
unprecedented rapid growth fu-
elled by progress in the peace
process between 1993 and 1996.
"Tourism is very much influ-
enced by the geopolitical situa-
tion," said Abraham Rosental,
director general of the Israel Ho-
tel Association. "People like the
idea of the peace process, stabil-
ity, and the possibility of a Mid-
dle East tourism package. All of
these things were damaged by
the 1996 terror acts."
According to statistics released
by the group at the convention,
the number of incoming tourists
to Israel more than doubled from
about 1.1 million in 1991 to a
record 2.5 million in 1995. That
rapid climb represented a 12 per-
cent average year-on-year in-
crease in tourism to Israel,

compared to an average of about
three percent in the rest of the
world. The boom was clearly
linked to progress in the peace
process.
But the spate of bombings in
1996 began to reverse the trend.
Hotel association projections for
1997 show incoming tourists
dropping back to the 1994 level
of 2.2 million. Ironically, noted
Rosental, Jewish tourists tend to
cancel their travel plans to Israel
in tough times more frequently
than Christian pilgrims.
A drop in tourism means a
drop in crucial revenues to the
state. In 1996, tourism brought
in $3.4 billion into Israel. The ho-
tel association estimates Israel
will lose $1.8 billion in unreal-
ized potential tourism revenues
from this and last year.
Mickey Federman, the orga-
nization's president, said the pro-
posed law to delegitimize Reform
and Conservative conversions in
Israel could discourage many
Jews from visiting Israel. He also
urged the prime minister to block
pending legislation which would
ban the printing of Christian ma-
terial that could be used to pros-
elytize, a move that risked
driving away Israel's Christian
friends.
But even the most successful
marketing campaign cannot lure
tourists like forward movement
in the peace process. ❑

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