He’s catered for the Queen and brought kosher to Dubai, but Arieh Wagner’s greatest pride is serving Torah nobility

Photos: Maxim Denisenko, Personal Archives

The call couldn’t have come at a better time. With COVID-19 scaling down weddings significantly and erasing social events from the calendar, hotelier and caterer Arieh Wagner of Golders Green, London, found himself without a single job since Purim. Then came the groundbreaking peace deal between the United Arab Emirates and Israel in August, followed by the treaty between Bahrain and Israel a month later.

As soon as the Bahrain deal was announced, Wagner received a call from a former Sheraton Hotel colleague of 20 years ago. “Do you remember me?” the fellow asked, explaining that he is now the manager of the Ritz-Carlton in the Arabic country of Bahrain.

Their conversation continued in person shortly after, with a handshake, er, elbow bump, all the way in Bahrain, an island in the Persian Gulf with a small 150-year-old Jewish community. The manager contracted Wagner to supply double-wrapped kosher meals for the Ritz-Carlton, to serve the expected influx of Jewish tourists.

A friend from London then introduced Wagner to the Habtoors, a wealthy Emirati family that owns a few hotels in the UAE, one of which was suitable for a kosher program. Because COVID-19 is not so rampant in Dubai, it is business as usual there, and the Habtoors wanted to be able to cater to a Jewish crowd. They offered Wagner the job.

“The situation in my industry is so dire that when Dubai came up, I knew I had to do it,” Wagner explains. “You have to reinvent yourself. It took a lot of mental power to travel after being stationed at home for so long, but more so, to travel to an Arabic place that was so different from anywhere I’ve been…. But sometimes you have to go out of your comfort zone.”

And so, after many months of no work, Wagner is back in business. He is hosting a kosher program in the five-star Habtoor Palace, with its marbled atriums, magnificent suites, sparkling pools, and private access to the Palm Jumeirah beach. Wagner is shipping all the food from the UK because, as he says, he doesn’t shecht camels, and he is fielding several inquiries about weddings in Dubai, as well.

His daughter Racheli, a teacher, recently flew to Dubai to scout out program trip ideas and arrange the kids’ club — standard procedure for Wagner’s hotel programs. She wasn’t disappointed: Dubai’s highlights include the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa and its 148th floor observation deck; the Palm Islands, a show-stopping flower garden and water fountain walkway; sand dune Jeeping and desert safaris; the world’s biggest aquarium; and an enormous water park.