Every Friday at sundown, the telephone operators at Tel Aviv's sleekly modern Hotel Deborah close down the switchboard. Guests at writing desks in the lobby put away pens and snuff out cigarettes. Desk clerks lock up the cash register. For the Orthodox Jew, all servile work is forbidden on the Sabbath —and the rule is strictly observed at the Deborah, the world's largest strictly kosher hotel.
In Israel, even the big luxury hotels run kosher kitchens, but otherwise the halacha (Jewish law) is loosely observed. The Deborah, on the other hand, 1 run so religiously that one rival innkeeper calls...
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