All we knew when we booked was that we were going to be wined and dined and our children would have fun

Each winter, to escape the end-of-year holidays, our family would pack up our brood and drive to a kosher hotel in Bournemouth, a seaside town on England’s South Coast. It was a break we anticipated through the cold winter months.  An unwinding. A chance to spend time with the children and meet friends.

One year, the hotel didn’t open. Instead, my cousin persuaded us to come to something called Family Week — a nascent kiruv venture of the United Synagogue (the main synagogue body in England that runs most of the shuls). We were active members of our local Orthodox community — though in hindsight, we were blissfully ignorant of the depth and breadth of our precious heritage.

With nothing better to do, we booked. The address: Charters Towers in Bexhill on Sea on the South Coast. When we arrived, we discovered that it was not a luxury hotel, but an antiquated boarding school for girls, boasting a sterling academic record, wonderful grounds, and spartan accommodation.  All we knew when we booked was that we were going to be wined and dined and our children would have fun. Little did we know that the only alcoholic drink we would see was wine for Kiddush on Shabbos.