Marcel Levin gives Torah giants a breather in the alpine air

Photos: Family archives

The ride from Chur to Arosa spirals upward through incredible mountain scenery. Forests of tall pines, tiny village stations, flashes of sparkling waterfalls, and bright sun bouncing off the mountains. As we cross the most graceful gray bridge over an alpine gorge, I think of my grandparents traveling through this snowy wonderland in the 1960s and 1970s, as they often vacationed in Arosa, and of all the rabbanim and gedolim who traveled through these parts over the years, on their way for some rest at Levin’s hotel. Then I think back to Mr. Levin’s father, Benish, founder of the hotel. What did this Swiss Alpine splendor look like to a Lithuanian-born yeshivah bochur, traveling on his own to these parts back in 1927, seeking a cure for tuberculosis? Nechte halt, Arosa.

We’re sitting on a sun-drenched porch facing one of the choicest Alpine tableaux in Switzerland, while our kids slurp mango sorbet from sundae cups and munch lekach and chocolate cake at a nearby table.

This is Arosa’s historical heimish landmark, the Hotel Metropol, and Marcel and Lea Levin join us. Marcel Levin, busy hotelier that he is, is always happy to talk. In fact, he’s brought out a bulging album that chronicles some of the historical highlights of this mainstay of the frum traveler’s globe, intertwined, of course, with his own family’s story — for this animated balabos in his sixties was born and bred in this idyllic Swiss resort town. Arosa, and the hotel business, are in his bones.

The album shows pictures of joyful Purims and family simchahs in the hotel dining room, alongside letters and pictures from gedolim who conducted tishen in the hotel’s beis medrash with a breathtaking mountain view as a backdrop. From the first visit of Rav Yechezkel Abramsky in the 1930s, the hotel became a welcome respite for rebbes and rabbanim for over eight decades. More recently, the rebbes of Belz and Vizhnitz, Rav Avrohom Yehoshua Soloveitchik, Rav Shimon Galai from Bnei Brak, the Toldos Aharon Rebbe, and the Rebbe of Bohush have all come here for a break and some healthy air. (There is a chassidish hotel guest sitting and learning near us right now, behind some potted plants. “You’re learning now? I thought you were here to gather strength! Go out and enjoy,” Marcel urges playfully.)

He proudly flips pages in his album. “This is a postcard that Rav Yechezkel Sarna ztz”l wrote here on this porch.” The rosh yeshivah of Chevron writes that he is enjoying the mountains of Arosa Lenzerheide “which are not unclothed, but warmly covered with trees and grass, and the beautiful lakes.”

It has been almost nine decades since Hotel Metropol first earned its place on the frum map. “My father was makir rabbannan — he had an appreciation for Torah scholars,” Eli Levin, Marcel’s older brother, tells us. “He gave each rebbe and rosh yeshivah great respect, so they continued to vacation here.”

Some of them had special requirements, Marcel remembers. “Rav Refoel Soloveitchik (son of the Brisker Rav) once came to stay in Arosa when I was a boy, and he told me, ‘Marcel, I need a room with a bath.’ Back in those days, most of the rooms didn’t have their own private bathrooms. I said to him, ‘But, you know, it’s the Nine Days…’

“‘No, Marcel,’ he insisted, ‘I need a room with a bath. You’ll see why in a few days.’