Assessing hotels and retreat centres for groups that keep Shabbat and kashrut: five deal-breakers, a three-level rating and a written venue questionnaire (Poland and Central Europe, 2023-2026)

Groups that keep kashrut and Shabbat can stay only in venues that meet a few technical conditions, and most hotels and retreat centres in Poland and the neighbouring countries were not built with those conditions in mind. This paper describes how a ground-services provider decides whether a venue can host such a group. It is based on venue searches and group events in 2023-2026, on records kept for four venues that were used or seriously considered, and on a client's reference letter. We set out five conditions that exclude a venue when they fail and cannot be worked around: an exclusive kitchen that may be kashered, access to the building and rooms without electronics on Shabbat, lights that can stay on, one room for meals and prayer for the whole of Shabbat, and power for hot plates and urns for about 26 hours. Each venue is rated ready, conditional or not ready for a specific group. The three obstacles we meet most often are the kitchen, automatic entrance doors and lighting. Since November 2026 the questions, which we used to settle in conversation, are sent to the venue as a written questionnaire before the contract, so that what the venue agrees to cannot be withdrawn later. The questionnaire is published in the appendix. The paper makes no halachic rulings: how a group uses the building on Shabbat is decided by the group's rabbi.