Concert cruises

When you go and spend a week on a cruise ship you really want to have a great time, and you will. Having great performances and shows is part of the cruise experience.
For the kosher traveler you can find today a great new line of Jewish music cruises that will provide exactly that. Jewish music cruises to fit for the observant crowd accompanied by the top performers in the Jewish music industry, with their fantastic new shows.
The Jewish music variety includes not only the “pop” singers rather also the world of Jewish liturgics the chazzanut and performers the chazzanim. On these kosher cruises we build a great selection of artistes so everyone can have something they like.
I will not start to name dropping, but you know as well as me that the biggest names in Jewish music are on these kosher cruises.
The Jewish music cruises are at the top standards for kashrut with a team of mashgichim on board and a cruise Rabbi to supervise everything and make sure the religious needs are all taken care of.
The food is at five star standards with top glatt kosher cuisine chefs form Israeli kosher hotels, using fresh ingredients imported from around the world to assure top ¬quality and great food for every meal.
Well If you don’t try it once you will never know how great the Jewish music cruises really are.
For more about the kosher cruises http://www.jewishmusiccruises.com

Kosher tours are fit for you

Where ever you look it seems like kosher travel is taking over the world, new locations new attractions and it sounds like lots of fun. Let’s let the truth be told it is hard to run a kosher tour, the locations are getting easier for the single traveler to find a great kosher tour to the location of his choice.
So what is so great about kosher tours with an organized group tour?
The answer to this in three things kashrut, locations and great groups.
Traveling kosher with a group is often the way to go, all kosher meals are setup in advanced and you have no worrying about vegetarian food or eating out of a can for the whole trip. The kosher meals are supervised by a team of Rabbi’s and Mashgichim that do their best to offer great kosher food.
In the past many kosher travel agencies would offer one or two locations for group kosher tours per season, today we can offer you over 15 locations worldwide. You can join the group form anywhere in the world. All you need to do is choice the location and date you would like to travel and see what we can offer.
For each kosher tour a group is put together in a way to ensure a great tour to all. Whether it is the ages and the language spoken by the group all is taken in to consideration.
The pricing you can see for yourself at http://www.exoticjewishtravel.com

Dateline

This article was reproduced with permission from the STAR-K.
From the article "Don't Miss the Boat:
Halachic Guidelines of Kosher Cruises" by
Rabbi Zvi Goldberg, Star-K Kashrus Administrator


The International Date Line is, by convention, 180 degrees from Greenwich, England. At noon on Monday on the Eastern side of the dateline it is noon on Tuesday on the Western side. While halacha also recognizes the need for a dateline, the majority of poskim do not accept the International Dateline as the halachic dateline.21 Issues related to the International Dateline are extremely complex. We present several examples here to suggest questions to pose to one's Rav.

As an illustration, let us look at Alaska, a popular cruise destination. According to Rav Yechiel Michel Tucazinsky, author of the Gesher Hachaim, the dateline is 144.8°W, exactly 180° from Jerusalem. A cruise to Juneau would not present a problem. However, according to Rav Tucazinsky's opinion, if the cruise sails westward towards Valdez, Anchorage, Kodiak or the Aleutian Islands, the dateline has been crossed (at a line that corresponds approximately to Valdez). Rav Heinemann, shlit"a, holds that in deference to Rav Tucazinsky's opinion, one should observe dinei deoraisa (prohibitions of the Torah) on Friday, since Rav Tucazinsky considers it as Shabbos. Therefore, actions such as writing or turning on lights are prohibited. However, since Rav Tucazinsky's opinion is a minority one, Rabbinic prohibitions, such as shopping or handling muktzah, are permissible on that day. Furthermore, using a shinui, unusual manner, to perform a Biblically proscribed violation of Shabbos or doing so through the action of a non-Jew, would be permitted on Friday. Shabbos would be kept as usual on Saturday.

Furthermore, according to some poskim, mainland Alaska, even west of 144.8°, follows the date of Canada and the U.S. In other words, the dateline does not cut through the land mass of Alaska. (If it were to cut through, then a situation conceivably could arise where two people might be standing next to each other, and one would be observing Shabbos and the other not.) Rather, the dateline follows the coast of Western Alaska, down and around its peninsula, and up towards Valdez. At the 144.8° longitude line, the dateline cuts straight down into the Gulf of Alaska and the Pacific Ocean. A person who crossed this dateline while at sea on Friday would be sailing into Shabbos. If he then disembarks in Western Alaska, he is now relieved of Shabbos obligations, since, according to these opinions, it is Friday on land.

Generally, around-the-world cruises also present dateline concerns. For instance, one such cruise travels westward from the U.S. to China. On this cruise, all the possible halachic datelines are crossed. One would have to carefully track the ship in order to determine what he is permitted to do in each part of the world. What locals call Friday or Sunday in some places may actually be Shabbos.

Dateline determination also affects issues such as Yom Tov, ta'anis, tefilah, tefillin, and sefiras ha'omer.

Also see, A Traveler's Guide to the International Dateline

Issues involved with traveling on Shabbat

1) Riding the boat
This is discussed in the Mishneh Brura, perek 248. You can ride
on a boat on Shabbat if the bottom of the boat is more than 10 tfachim about one meter) above the bottom of the water, because then you would not be considered to be going outside the tachum. If you get on the boat before shabbat, and establish the boat as your shvita (the place you are staying for Shabbat), then there is no problem with the boat leaving port on Shabbat. Some authorities even allow getting on the boat Friday afternoon, staying there until nightfall and making kiddush there, then returning home to sleep and boarding the boat Shabbat morning before it
leaves.

2) Boarding 3 days before shabbat, issue of Ong Shabbat
There is a problem with boarding a boat within three days before Shabbat on an ocean voyage, since you would then likely be seasick and this would ruin your oneg Shabbat. But for a dvar mitzvah, this is allowed.

3) Carrying on Shabbat on the ship
Carrying on a ship on Shabbat is not a problem if everyone eats their meals in a common dining area, which is usually the case on cruise ships. Even if that weren't the case, I suppose you could make an eruv, as you could do in a hotel.

4) Getting off ship on Shabbat
I know that in practice, people don't get off boats on Shabbat, if the boat did not arrive in port before Shabbat. And I know that people who are forced to get off irplanes on Shabbat (which would present the same halachic issue, since airplanes are more than 10 tfachim above the ground) stay confined to the terminal they are in until after Shabbat. I assume the reason is that at the beginning of Shabbat, when the tachum of each person is established, the boat or airplane did not have a tachum, since it was more than 10 tfachim above the ground (or bottom of the water). Someone in the city where the boat docks, on the other hand, is allowed (for a dvar mitzvah, if I am remembering this correctly) to go on board the boat on Shabbat
while it is in port, but not to leave on the boat on Shabbat, since the ship is within the tachum of the city, even though the city is not within the (non-existent) tachum of the boat.

These are just some of the halachic issues that one should be aware of before boarding a cruise. Be sure that the agency you are traveling with is aware and dealing with these and other issues.

Reproduced with permission from the STAR-K. Thank you to Rabbi Zvi Goldberg, Star-K Kashrus Administrator for his article "Don't Miss the Boat:Halachic Guidelines of Kosher Cruises"

What are options if one wants to eat kosher on a cruise?

There are different ways for one to cruise kosher.
1) All-Kosher boats - there is one company that has an all-kosher boat.
Chosen Voyage has been running all-kosher cruises since 2004. While kosher usually refers to dietary laws set out in the Torah, on Chosen Voyage's cruises it is also applied to daily living as practiced by orthodox Jews who are observant of laws pertaining to modesty, prayers and the Sabbath. When the Chosen Voyage is sailing, the ship's business center is converted into a Judaica library and the wine list is replaced with kosher wines. Daily minyans take place in the conference room, and on the Sabbath the lounge is transformed into a synagogue.
Pros: Can vacation in deluxe style while completely observing halacha.
Cons: Have to travel with all Jews
Available by: Chosen Voyage which sails on various small and medium sized cruise vessels.
2)Pre-packaged Kosher Meals - kosher meals are pre-packaged off the ship in a kosher kitchen, frozen and brought to the table sealed in their original containers; kitchens on board are not kosher.
Pros: If fancy food is not important to you,then this is a way you can travel like without the jewish "chevra".
Cons: If your idea of a deluxe vacation includes gourmet food, this is not the path to take.
Available on: Most major "Mega" cruise ships ex. Celebrity Cruises, Holland America, Royal Caribbean
3)Kosher Kitchen on ship - there are various agencies that take over and kasher a kitchen on the ship, they bring in specially selected chefs and mashgiachim and with all that they are able to prepare food that have the standard of a 5-star hotel.
Pro: You can travel with a Jewish chevra as well with a few hundred "other" people and still eat gourmet, lavish, food 3 meals a day.
Con: The halahic issues of kashrut are very complicated on a huge ship that run both kosher and non kosher kitchens silmutaneously. As written by Rabbi Zvi Goldberg, Star-K Kashrus Administrator in his article "Don't Miss the Boat:Halachic Guidelines of Kosher Cruises"

Providing kosher supervision on a cruise ship is not an easy task. "Mega-ships" carrying over 4,000 guests serve more than 12,000 meals per day! Food preparation occurs around-the-clock in multiple locations. Often a 'kosher cruise' means that an entrepreneur has booked a number of cabins aboard a large ship. In such an arrangement, kosher and non-kosher food will be prepared and served simultaneously.

The traveler must have confidence in the kashrus agency. In order to instill confidence, a reliable kashrus organization must address many issues.

Available by: Eddie's Travel (www.koshertravelers.com), Kosherica, SuiteLife - all of whom travel on various large luxury ships such as Costa, MSC, Celebrity.

So which ever way you choose, in the 22nd century jews can travel the world in style and well fed!

Evolution of Jewish Travel

Jews for thousands of years were forced to wander. Now, out of choice, we travel frequently to places near by (from New York to Chicago) and places far out (from New York to Austalia).

As Joshua Cohen wrote in his article in the Forward:

Not many Yiddish authors ever mentioned it, but the Tefilat Haderech — usually translated as "The Wayfarer's Prayer," better "The Prayer for Those on the Way" — is an interesting piece of literature. It's a prayer said as a safeguard for a journey, for travel. What's interesting about the prayer is that it's wholly in the plural, even if an individual is reciting it only for himself. The idea, expounded in the Talmud, is that a single Jew speaks for all Jews, and all Jews are travelers, wanderers...

But in our day, in the Jewish-American end of History, wandering has been reduced to tourism. The Wayfarer has given way to the Two-Week Eastern European Web-Booked Family Package Deal and the western edge of the East is dotted with Potemkin villages for tourists.

But not only do Jews travel far but Jews now travel via all forms of transportations. Jews drive cars. Jews ride on buses. Jews travel by train. Jews travel by plane. And now a days Jews also travel by boat. But not like we travelled on to escape Europe, sleeping on the decks below while eating the only the food we had in our sacks. Rather, today we Jews travel on 5-star kosher cruises, while sleeping in penthouse cabins and eating the finest of kosher gourmet food, cooked fresh daily.
Now thats evolution!

Costa to unveil new ship in July 2006: Costa Concordia

Estimated Inaugural: July 14, 2006 Status: At finishing dock

Name: Costa Concordia

Size: GRT: 112,000 Capacity: 3,004 lower berths - 3,800 total

Builder: Fincantieri - Sestri, Italy

This will become Costa's largest ship. The hull will be built on a progression of the Carnival Conquest platform with the interior being unique to Costa. It will have four pool, two of which will have a retractable roof. Costa says it is designed for year-round cruising in the Mediterranean.

Look forward to Kosher Cruises on the new ship

Kosher Cruises Summer 2006

Yes, there are kosher cruises available in the summer of 2006. The summer is a great time to travel because you will be able to benefit from the warmth of the sun.
An example of the Summer 2006 Kosher Cruises are two 7-night voyages on the Costa Magica. Sail from Copenhagen to visit Hellesulyt; Geiranger; Bergan; Flam; Kristiansand; Oslo and return to Copenhagen. Departs July 9 and August 20, 2006.