(Courtesy of Kosher River Cruises) Malcolm Green, director of Kosher River Cruises, started his career in the hospitality business. As the son and grandson of food-service entrepreneurs he has seen, first-hand, the changing habits of kosher holidaymakers.
In the 1970s, he and his aunt ran Brighton’s (all kosher) Kings Hotel in The UK. “In 1945, there were 40 kosher hotels and boarding houses in Brighton. We were the last surviving one.”
His aunt had been the manager there for 20 years and the owners wanted her to take over the license. “She wasn’t shomer Shabbat, but I was,” so he agreed to do it with her. He also had catering experience with his father, who was a major kosher caterer in London for over 20 years.
Five years later, when the lease expired, they closed the hotel and Green pivoted to kosher catering in the seaside town, until he, his wife Diane and two young children made aliyah in 1983.
Apparently, Israel wasn’t ready for traditional Ashkenazi menus so within a year, he was back in Brighton, serving melon, smoked salmon, chicken soup and roast chicken dinners to a loyal (and growing) crowd.
Five years later he and his family returned to Israel, where things took off. He became “the doyen of Anglo-Saxon caterers in Israel.”
As his reputation grew, word spread and he started catering for discriminating clients holidaying all over the world, from Jamaica and St Martin to Hawaii and Florida’s Key West. And so, his globe-trotting catering began.
After feeding an extended family on holiday in a Scottish castle, he set up his website— Kosher Services Worldwide—later adding weddings and ocean cruises to his portfolio.
For 24 years during this period, Green ran a very successful Pesach program at a seafront hotel, also in Brighton. It was the first such program in the UK and one of the first in Europe.
At the same time, he started catering on ocean-going cruise ships. In 1997, he became Executive Kosher Chef for Orient Lines, working also on Costa, MSC and finally on the Crystal Serenity.
When Elbit, one of Israel’s premier high-tech companies, wanted to charter the 3,000 passenger MSC Musica cruise ship for three cruises for their employees and families, MSC asked Green to become project manager, a huge undertaking involving nearly $2 million worth of glatt kosher food. There were three weeks of onboard staff training and through-the-night koshering of two huge galleys. It had two restaurants, one dairy and one meat, plus four identical meat buffets. All used new plates and serving dishes. He brought onboard various MSC senior people with whom he had worked before.
All these experiences involving Jewish charters were quite appealing to Green, as he preferred not having to share kitchens or having a small minority of Jewish passengers who interacted only for meals and prayers. Therefore, he created Kosher River Cruises 11 years ago. The idea was to take over an entire smaller vessel for an intimate, luxury, all-inclusive, all-kosher cruising experience. “We are able to keep a very high quality of food and service since our base of operations is an all-kosher floating hotel that takes us to our destinations, instead of us having to go to it! It’s like traveling with a family. We are a group of like-minded individuals, exploring together the wonders of the world in luxury and comfort. Shabbat onboard is a very special experience. No matter where in the world we are from, we all come together in a powerful shared experience.”
The logistics for these cruises are a full-time job in its own right, and years of experience in the kosher and travel industry make Green a pro at it. Apart from the chartered ship’s full-time staff, Green brings his own staff of 16 on each cruise, which includes tour leaders, chefs, mashgichim, rabbis (to direct the dedicated onboard shul) and lecturers.
Getting kosher food to some of the more remote rivers can be a challenge. “On our Vietnam & Cambodia Mekong River cruises, we begin sending shipping containers of dry food more than six months before the start of the cruise. Then we have to deal with customs and local storage, including all the yearly storage of our kosher equipment, plus kitchen and service wear. All the meat must be flown in from outside the country. … As you can see, kashering and cooking onboard is only a small part of what we do. Most of the challenges happen before our cruises, with all of the logistics involved in setting up the program; however, with our experience, we have become experts in our ability to run our tours around the world at a very high level.”
Guests are always appreciative of Green’s efforts. “We were in Manaus in the middle of the Amazon. It’s extremely remote. We’d begged, borrowed and smuggled to get food there. The shochet (the rabbi’s father-in-law) in Belem, which is 800 miles from Manaus, had been slaughtering and sending in parcels of meat every few days. We really had to work hard, but we made a beautiful cruise in one of the world’s most remote destinations.”
This year, his team began running cruises on a luxury super yacht with its inaugural cruise from Panama to Costa Rica and the return to Panama City. Unlike the large cruise ships, these smaller, 100-passenger super yachts can travel off-the-beaten-path to destinations and harbors that larger ships cannot reach.
The market for these exclusive trips is so limited that he runs only three per year for a maximum of 100 passengers per cruise. “It’s better to run them full, rather than run more trips at a lesser capacity. We guarantee all our departures and have never canceled a cruise due to lower registration; something most other kosher travel companies often do. Luckily, most of our cruises are sold out.” Green must be doing something right as he boasts an average of over 70% past-passenger return on each of his departures.
Part of his dedicated staff, added to enhance the guests’ travel experience, now includes Kosher River Cruises onboard historian Dr. Henry M. Abramson, dean of Touro University in Brooklyn. “Many of the places to which we travel have a past Jewish presence that may span thousands of years. The destination may now be empty of Jews, but Dr. Abramson’s specialty is his ability to bring these places to life with engaging lectures and onsite commentary during daily tours.” To round out the staff, they have added culinary experiences with cookbook author and celebrity food and travel blogger Naomi Nachman.
Plans for the coming years include taking 100 guests aboard their second super yacht, this time from St Maarten to Barbados and a tour along the Mekong from Phnom Pehn, Cambodia to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Riverboat and Super Yacht Departures for 2024 and 2025 include:
The Douro River – Portugal – In search of the Crypto Jews of Portugal: May 30 – June 6, 2024
Beautiful Bordeaux – France – Exploring Jewish Wine Country: October 28 – November 4, 2024
Super Yacht – St. Martin to Barbados Caribbean Expedition: January 8-15, 2025
Mekong River – Vietnam & Cambodia: May 19-29, 2025
Gems of Northern Italy: October 27 – November 3, 2025
For more information about Kosher River Cruises and departures, contact Kosher River Cruises at:
Web: https://kosherrivercruise.com
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +1 310-237-0122
WhatsApp SMS: +1 (206)-536-3150
Israel: 052 836 2661
United Kingdom: 020 3393 6823
