AT THE START OF AN 18-year sojourn in Redlands, California, Israeli expatriates Amilia and Ovadia Lev discovered that folks had peculiar notions about Jews and Judaism - and that American Jews sometimes had the oddest ideas of all. The Levs responded by opening their home on Shabbat and the High Holy Days to family, friends, neighbors and passersby, offering a place at their table, a guided tour of Amilia's sweeping Jewish theme-art murals, and, to most out-of-towners, a bed for the night.
Over the years, thousands of people have alighted on the Levs' doorstep, and in time, the couple began to speak half-seriously of their "kosher bed & breakfast."
So when they moved to Las Vegas recently, they sent out cards announcing that their "establishment" had changed locales. The Levs now live in a two-story house in a quiet residential area 15 minutes by car from the Strip, where they have set aside two rooms for paying house-guests ($ 100 per room per night, queen-size beds available, sleeping bags can be used for children). There is a synagogue within walking distance, and breakfast, says Amilia, is "Israeli-style." Call for reservations.
After breakfast at the Levs, more kosher comestibles await. With the November opening of the Casba, at the Algiers Hotel, across from the Circus Circus Hotel, the Strip got its only glatt kosher food emporium (there are two other kosher eateries in town, Rafi's and Sara's Place). The decor here is low-glitz Old Vegas, the background music late-period Shlomo Artzi, and the menu, a traditional mix of homemade Middle Eastern salads and grill and the usual Central European stick-to-your-ribs suspects (goulash, schnitzel, stuffed peppers). A meal for two is about $ 25.