Kfar Maccabiah Hotel: A look at the 'ultimate Zionist hotel' - review

You might think you are in a kibbutz in the Galilee when you wake up in the Kfar Maccabiah Hotel. Step onto your wrap-around hotel room balcony, and the quiet is only interrupted by the plethora of birds chirping in the blue jacaranda trees.

The Kfar Maccabiah manager, with the most Israeli of names, Galil Itzhaki, says he feels he’s running the ultimate Zionist hotel. The 270-room hotel is owned by the Maccabi World Union (MWU), the umbrella organization that united Diaspora sports clubs. In the late 19th century, Jewish athletes and sports aficionados began establishing their own sports clubs after being rejected by national and Christian clubs.

The 22nd Maccabiah will take place in Israel on July 8-22 this year.

The MWU built its international headquarters in Ramat Gan, which included a modest hotel for visiting athletes and movement members. That was replaced in 1967 with a hotel with standard rooms. In 2008, a wing of suites was opened, making the hotel a particularly comfortable place for post-October 7, 2023, evacuees from the South and the Gaza border. 

Airline crews from nearby Ben-Gurion Airport, as well as athletes in training, regularly stay at the hotel. Because there are 17 meeting halls on campus, it’s a popular venue for organizational meetings and retreats.

A rainy weekday getaway

My husband and I were none of the above. We went there for the night to celebrate my husband’s birthday. The hotel offers a romantic overnight deal that includes breakfast or half-board, a couple’s massage, and movie tickets for two.

We drove onto the grounds at the same time as a groom dressed in a perfectly fitted wedding suit – soon to be joined by the bride – was getting ready for a photo shoot. Weddings don’t take place at the hotel, but it’s popular with couples seeking a picturesque setting for their wedding albums. The bright, airy lobby has an unusually large sitting area. There were religious couples getting to know each other on dates arranged by matchmakers. 

A Knesset member was talking on his phone. Many of the armchairs were filled by recently released hostages and their families, who are recuperating at the hotel. Later, at dinner, we shared the dining room with basketball players who board there and post-high school student athletes on a Maccabi movement gap year program. Indeed, a Zionist hotel.

We arrived on a rainy weekday, a school night, so there was only a handful of children. Nonetheless, the abundance of sports facilities, the availability of 120 one- and two-bedroom suites (for four to seven persons), and the short drive to get there make the hotel an obvious choice for family vacations. Each suite has two bathrooms, as well as a table and chairs for those who choose in-room dining.

You won’t find a jazzy, up-to-the-minute hotel here. The decorative style is retro, and the wooden furniture could use a touch-up, but what’s missing in sleek design is compensated for in space. Many trendier hotels have given up on dresser drawers and closets. Here, you’ll find space to unpack without tripping over a suitcase. There is a bathtub and a shower in the larger of the two bathrooms. 

The corridors and rooms of the hotel are sparkling clean; the beds and chairs are comfortable. The word “comfort” should be applied to the food, too. Ours was a rainy winter night, and after a swim in one of the indoor pools, we happily filled large bowls with steaming corn soup. Talk about comfort food. Standouts at the long salad bar were the perfectly cooked eggplant, peppers, cabbage, and onions of the antipasti – soft but not mushy, seasoned but not oily. 

Everything in the main course was tasty, starting with the two choices of fish: tilapia and sea bass. I liked the savory beef goulash, as well as the grilled and the baked chicken. Bowls of fresh fruit complemented the pastries. I went for the walnut frosted coffee cake, which was perfect with the tea I served myself from the steaming hot water urn. Hot drinks aren’t always served after main meals in hotel restaurants, and if they are, they’re rarely hot enough or come in tiny cups – hence, I appreciated the help-yourself beverages.

The hotel is rated four stars, but the breakfast is closer to five stars. There’s a wide variety of cheeses, vegetables, cereals, pastries, fruit, quiches, and particularly good omelets. Standouts on the buffet were tiny peppers stuffed with cheese and a stuffed fruit I’d never seen before, which no one in the lobby or breakfast room – not even the chef – could identify in a language that I know.

The only downer of our stay was the pool roof nearly blowing off as a blustery storm moved in. The lifeguard courteously escorted us swimmers to an adjoining pool with a firmer corrugated covering. In both pools, the water was pleasantly warm. There are also (well-covered) saunas and whirlpool hot tubs. The spa is lovely and attached to the hotel. Masseuse Marina immediately found every sore spot in my back.

The outdoor pools with water slides for children and youthful-minded adults and grandparents look terrific, but even if a hardy former New Englander like me would have tried them in the winter, they are only filled in April when, depending on the weather, the summer season begins.

Ramat Gan Park is within walking distance from the hotel. Or, if guests prefer, they can rent bikes on-site and get there on wheels. The Safari Park is also within walking distance, but a car is required in the park to fully experience the safari where the lions roar.

When making reservations for summer, keep in mind that this is the year of the Maccabi Games, starting July 8. Athletes and family fans will be coming from around the world. Book early for summer, too. Passover week, in case you’re asking, was sold out long ago. 

Part two: A hug of survival

The day my husband and I had scheduled to visit Kfar Maccabiah Hotel turned out to be the same Thursday that Hamas released the murdered bodies of Kfir and Ariel Bibas and the purported body of their mother, Shiri Silberman Bibas. 

The hotel’s public relations representative texted me to check that we still wanted to come. “It’s a very sensitive day,” she said.

She had a special reason for warning us. Returning hostages stay at the Kfar Maccabiah Hotel after their hospital examination and treatment and before returning home. By nature, I don’t like to change scheduled dates, so I confirmed that we would be coming.

In the large lobby of the Maccabiah hotel, families, presumably of the hostages, were sitting together, speaking quietly. There was no sign or sound that would give any indication that this day was different from any others in the hotel or that these special guests were there. No televisions or news outlets were in the lobby. I felt privileged just to be in their presence.

How can any of us possibly understand what they’ve been through?

Although no two experiences are identical, I keep thinking back to the release of the 52 American hostages abducted by the Iranians in 1979. Famed CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite announced daily the number of days of their captivity. In the first two weeks of the crisis, 13 hostages – eight Black men and five women – were released. Then nothing. 

The International Court of Justice in The Hague unanimously called for their immediate release. UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim flew to Tehran to negotiate, but his car was mobbed by angry Iranian crowds. An American armed rescue mission failed. Three brave American clergymen were allowed to visit the hostages and conduct Christmas services for most of them. Americans tied yellow ribbons on tree trunks.

Then on January 20, 1981, immediately after Ronald Reagan replaced Jimmy Carter as president of the United States, Cronkite announced that this was now Day 1 of freedom for the hostages. We didn’t watch a mortifying release ceremony on TV, but The Times quoted the Iranian chief negotiator Behzad Nabavi, the minister for executive affairs, telling their parliament, “The hostages are like a fruit from which all the juice has been squeezed out. Let us let them all go.”

In fact, the hostages were blindfolded as they were transported and taken to the airport. When the blindfolds came off, they found themselves surrounded by a mob of Iranian students who spat on them.

They had spent 444 days in captivity. The New York Times called the crisis the greatest American humiliation since Pearl Harbor. Jewish hostage Barry Rosen was among those hostages. Rosen has been interviewed recently, as he identifies with the Israeli hostages who have been freed. He is one of the few persons who can understand what they are going through, both in captivity and upon their release.

Rosen was born in Brooklyn, New York, and attended an elementary school yeshiva. Later in life he served in the Peace Corps in Iran, learned Farsi, and formed a deep affection for the country under the Shah. In his thirties, he returned to Iran – leaving behind his wife, Barbara, and their two young children after being offered the job of press attaché in the US embassy there. 

Four decades later, at age 80, Rosen remembers fluctuating between defiance and fear, counting the days, the helplessness knowing that the guards could do anything they wanted to him. The clergymen visited him in prison, and brought him a photo and letter from his wife.

Interviewed in The New York Post when our hostage deal was announced, he said, “I hugged my wife, Barbara. It’s almost as if I was there with them – it was a great moment to hear.”

The Rosen children have grown up. Barry and Barbara are busy grandparents of five, but he hasn’t forgotten his bouts of PTSD, his difficulty to reintegrate into his family, and the outside world. About our freed hostages, Rosen says, “Nothing is more important than for them to be home and see their loved ones again.”

That is, if your world still exists. In our Israeli trauma, Yarden Bibas would learn of the murder of his wife, his children, and his in-laws. On his release, Eli Sharabi would learn of the murder of his wife, Lianne, and teenage daughters, Yahel and Noiya, as well as his brother Yossi.

At dinner in the Kfar Maccabiah Hotel, the hostage families were joined by soldiers in uniform. But at Friday breakfast, they were joined by visiting family members. I got up to get my husband coffee. My husband reminded me that he likes it light and started to give me instructions for making a perfect cup. “It’s a machine, dear,” I said. “You push the button and get what you get.”

A man in a gray sweatshirt was ahead of me in line. The machine was sputtering steam, a sign that the milk needed to be replaced. A waitress refilled it as we waited. Like my husband, the man was particular about his coffee; but unlike me, he knew how to hit the buttons to get the coffee exactly the way he wanted. “Have you been here a long time?” I asked him, admiring his ease at manipulating the machine.

“No, just three days,” he said.

“Do you live near here?” I asked, wondering if locals came by for Friday morning breakfasts out.

He paused for a second. “I’m a hostage,” he said.

I think this was what I said next. My heart was pounding so hard, and I was so emotional I might have said something slightly different.

“Baruch haba. Kivodi l’hakir otcha (Welcome home. It’s my honor to meet you).”

I asked him his name. I really didn’t know. He hadn’t yet given the moving interview to Ilana Dayan on the Channel 12 TV show Uvda in which he detailed the horrors of his captivity. He wasn’t yet invited to Washington as a guest of President Donald Trump. Of course, I’d watched his exodus from bondage many times: the emaciated man from Kibbutz Be’eri. The sweatshirt obscured his slenderness. He was shaved and smiling and knew how to operate a coffee machine.

“Eli,” he said. “Eli Sharabi.”

And then he held out his arms for a hug. I stepped into his arms and hugged back. I could feel his bones as my arms went around him.

When we let go, we made small talk as we walked back to our respective tables to finish breakfast.

I can still feel that hug. I can only compare it to the hug I can still feel from January 27, 2002, when I found my cousin Mark Sokolow wounded but alive after the terror attack on Jaffa Road. Some hugs go right into your bones. A hug of gratefulness. A hug of survival. ■

The writer is the Israel director of public relations at Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America. Her latest book is A Daughter of Many Mothers.

The writer was a guest of the hotel.