Familiar Doesn’t Always Mean Safe
The lobby smells like Yom Tov, and our version of “getting ready for the meal” involves dressing up and coming down to the ballroom. Our kids run off with the children they met at lunch, and our teenagers disappear into their own orbit. As we sit down with our book and nowhere to be, we exhale – this feels like the safest place in the world. Everyone around us is shomer Shabbos, we are all more or less on the same schedule, and we are surrounded by our people. The unfamiliar hotel soon begins to feel like a home away from home.
Pesach at a hotel is beautiful… and there is a false sense of security we need to plan for.
Plan Your Pesach
Daily tools to help you navigate this season
With hundreds of Pesach programs to choose from, each one comes with its own unique set of perks. The food, the shiurim, the late-night tea room, Chol Hamoed trips and entertainment, day camp programs – if we can imagine it, it probably exists. During meals, we see kids running back and forth to their friends’ tables or playing together in the hallways. The hotel program, by its very design, creates the feeling of a shared community with people who are, in many cases, complete strangers. That gap between feeling and reality is where danger lives.
This is not a reason to be afraid. However, it is important to go in with a plan.
Day Camp
Our little ones typically fall right into the Pesach routine. Day camp runs between meals, and babysitters are often available to check in on sleeping kids during late-night Sedarim. There are activities and games planned, and a lot of the time our children genuinely have a fantastic and wholesome experience.
There are some factors to be cautious about. The staff running activities for our children are event employees hired for eight to ten days. They may be warm and capable, but they have not been through the background checks, mandated reporter training, or institutional child protection protocols that overnight camps in most states are legally required to maintain.
We should know who our children are with at all times. We can introduce ourselves personally to each of the counselors and ask questions about the schedule for each day. We can check in at random times during the day. If it helps, we can be open and honest with the staff from the start, letting them know that our child is being checked on regularly – not because we don’t trust them, but simply because we are in an unfamiliar place and are making sure our child is safe.
We can remind our kids, in age-appropriate language, that their body belongs to them, that they can always come talk to us, and that we want to hear about anything that feels weird or uncomfortable. We can ask our children specific questions about their day. It can be a casual conversation, like, “What did you do after you played blocks? Did you make any new friends?” Just keeping that dialogue open so if anything sounds off, we know from the start.
Kids in Hallways and Unknown Places
Similar to our “Practical Guide to Child Safety During Pesach”: We should not assume someone is watching the kids.
We can make a plan before Pesach – who is watching the kids, and when? It can be helpful to print out a schedule so everyone knows when they are on call and how often they are checking in.
If we have multiple families with children, we can consider creating a rotation so everyone gets time to rest – and the kids are not left unsupervised for long stretches.
During a conversation between Rabbi Zvi Gluck, Rabbi Yakov Horowitz of Bright Beginnings, and Rabbi Avi Landa, Zvi mentioned an experience he encountered firsthand. While on a hotel elevator, he witnessed a young adult showing a child pornography on his phone. The young man did not know he was riding the elevator with the director of Amudim, and luckily Zvi was able to step in immediately – but this does serve as a cautionary reminder. When we are surrounded by unknown people, it can take a very short amount of time for our child to be exposed to something they may never come in contact with at home.
Guidance for Teens
When it comes to the teenage social life of a hotel Pesach program, the tea room typically runs until midnight or later. The long hallways, stairwells, and pool decks quickly become places where our teens roam in packs, and a lot of that is genuinely good. They are making the kinds of friendships we made at camp. However, it is easy to lose track of where our kids are in that environment. The same communal warmth that feels so good to us as adults can be more dangerous for our teenagers, who are still learning to recognize when something doesn’t feel right.
We don’t always know what other families allow, and peer pressure can be really strong, especially when our children think we aren’t paying attention.
Before Pesach begins, we should have a real conversation with our teens. We can let them know that some things may be brought in by others that we don’t allow in our home, and that our household rules still apply while at the hotel. We should also be clear that we need to know who they’re with and where they are at all times – not to control them, but to protect them.
We should be specific about our non-negotiables: no one – adult or peer – gets one-on-one time with them in a private space, no matter how frum that person is. We can make sure they know we won’t panic if they come to us with things that make them uncomfortable or if they are afraid for any reason. We can build check-in expectations, curfews, and sleep guidelines, and if something comes up that makes them want to change those plans, they should come talk to us so we can make an informed decision.
Singles and Young Adults
Many Pesach programs have become somewhat of a shidduch environment. Some places bring in dedicated shadchanim, have singles tables, round-robin meet-and-greet sessions, or organized social programming. It is the Jewish version of a singles retreat, dressed up in Yom Tov clothes.
The intensity of that setup is worth naming honestly. We are meeting strangers in an environment engineered to feel like we already know them, in a context that frames every interaction as potentially serious, with late nights, flowing wine, and the constant filter of “we’re all the same kind of people” running in the background. That combination moves very fast. It bypasses the slower, more careful process through which we actually come to know whether someone is who they present themselves to be.
We should trust our instincts. If something about an interaction feels pressured, too intense, or off in a way that is hard to name, that feeling is worth listening to. We are not obligated to give anyone our number, our room number, or our time. And if a line gets crossed – if we feel unsafe, if someone does not take a clear “no” seriously – that is not something to minimize. We should let someone know and surround ourselves with safe people we trust.
Walking in with our eyes open.
The most protective thing we can bring to a hotel program is our awareness. We should walk in with the honest understanding that familiarity is not the same thing as safety.
As always, if you or someone you know needs help, reach out to Amudim. We are just a phone call away.
In case of an emergency, call 911, followed by your local Hatzalah.