GA! GA!

The UJC General Assembly is the largest annual gathering of Jewish leadership in the world. Wall to wall machers baby! This year it takes place in the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center in beautiful Nashville, Tennessee. As our intrepid embedded photographer demonstrates, security is tight, and that’s cool – we’d hate for anything bad to happen to any of our friends attending “the largest annual gathering of Jewish leadership in the world.” Gaylord Opryland is a huge convention center and includes a 44 foot waterfall – you can even tour the grounds on Delta Floatboats right inside the Hotel! That’s what that second picture is – sorry if it’s not so good, but that’s the best we can get on a cell phone camera. Hopefully our anonymous spy (who is neither Esther Kustanowitz or Leah Stern, both of whom are too busy preparing for their presentations to engage in blogging shenanigans) will deliver some cooler more incriminating photos in the future. For now, here’s what uh, deepthroat has to say:

I am absolutely blown away by the light and water show of the delta island of the gaylord opryhouse convention center. Just a note. If you’re ever in this place for another jew conference, definitely catch this magnificent display of water spraying, lit by colored lights, and accompanied by a multicultural music selection. Oh yeah, there are people here video recording this. They’ve obviously never been to cirque de soleil “o”.

I grew up in Montreal deepie. We eat cirque DU soleil for breakfast.

…there are way too many of us crammed into each hotel room, so whenever we have something delivered-like twelve more towels for the two people officially in the room-the rest of us have to hide in the bathroom until the hotel employee is gone. How Jewish of us to pay for two people and fit twelve in. If the hotel is lax enough that we can get away with it, it’s their fault. They shoulda known what they were getting into with a Jew convention.

Just so you know… deepthroat is one of those brash young activist types who is attending the GA on their own coin hoping to get support for whatever cockamamie project they’re involved in aimed at saving the world, saving the Jews or saving the world from the Jews. So deepthroat continues:

Although there are too many restaurants to count, right here in the building, we were too tired to move, so we decided to order room service. The sides weren’t too expensive, so we planned on getting just a few side dishes. But every time we dialed room service, an automatic answering machine told us, “Thank you for calling the Gaylord Opryland in room dining. All of our representatives are assisting other customers. Please stay on the line and we’ll be right with you.” And then silence. This went on for about twenty minutes, and six different calls, until finally one of us guessed, “They’re probably routing the call to India.”. When someone finally did pick up our call, her accent was too thick for us to understand each other, and we couldn’t verify that our mashed potatoes would be 100 percent vegan. Another hungry night…

Sounds like fun. No really. BIG fun.

ck
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ck

Founder and Publisher of Jewlicious, David Abitbol lives in Jerusalem with his wife, newborn daughter and toddler son. Blogging as "ck" he's been blocked on twitter by the right and the left, so he's doing something right.

14 Comments

  • OK. This is annoying. I just called Gaylord Opryland, credit card in hand, willing to pay for the extra occupants. Whoever it was that I spoke to there thanked me and told me it was unnecessary. Thus as far as I’m concerned, this issue is resolved in favor of our poor young activists. I chatted a bit with the GO rep (who did not want to go on record) and they said that very little goes on at the Hotel that they don’t know about. It’s an unofficial policy to allow these sorts of arrangements under certain circumstances and that the revenue generated by the GA more than compensates for a few extra towels. The rep ended the conversation with a Nashville accented Shalom! They were also really excited that I was calling from Jerusalem. Now can we please discuss substantive things?

    Like for instance, how cool is tamar dot fox at gmail dot com? I will pass on your message to the GA people!

    By the way, a good friend of mine is a Hotel executive so she shared with me generally accepted North American conference center principles… just sayin’ y’all!

  • I don’t know if deepthroat still needs food or perhaps a bed for one or two of the twelve others, but I live in Nashville and am happy to come by and bring some veggie food, or to host a couple of people in my guest room tonight (though you guys would have to work out transportation to and from the Opryland, since I have class early on Tuesday). Email me at tamar dot fox at gmail dot come.

  • Also, it’s a fire safety thing. While I was working in Britain, we always had to put a list of room occupancy outside into a special ‘fire safety box’. The list was there to tell the fire brigade how many people were in what room in case anything happened. Also, hotels need proper registration for their insurances. American hotels charge minimal fees for extra people in the room compared to hotels over here that usually charge fully for any extra person. I will agree though that hotel rates can be ridiculous, but to blame are the corporations that willingly pay sums like $1,200 per night for their business travellers – those corporations can tax deduct the expenses anyway. If the GA attracts and wants to attract so many young people, it should make sure to have some budget accommodation (e.g. a hostel) on the site.

  • I hate when it eats my comments, so here I go again:

    Shy Guy I commend you and agree that it is wrong. Kudos for not backing down.

    ck your tone was dismissive; are you saying that as wrong things go, it’s not so bad, or are you really saying it is absolutely not wrong? There are worse things, to be sure. But I wouldn’t say that ethically it’s benign. Twelve people are going to use more resources in a room than the two who are paying, even if it’s just water, towels and housekeeping.

  • ck Says:
    November 12th, 2007 at 9:33 am
    Well, Shy Guy… was there a contract explicitly stating that only 2 people could use the room?

    Almost always the answer is yes. These are usually listed as single/double occupancy rates. I’ve never been to a hotel, motel, hostel that does not contractually designate this.

    Was this expressly pointed out to the registrants ahead of time?

    Can’t say. Usually yes. What is almost 100% likley is that the registrants to the room signed on whatever the normal terms are. That’s what they’re obligated to.

    Are we going to deny these whippersnappers the opportunity to participate in the biggest Jew-do of the year because they can’t otherwise afford an exorbitantly priced room?

    That’s very Marxist/Leninist of you. If someone doesn’t like the prices, no one is forcing them to stay there. I’m sure there’s a deadbeat motel nearby. Yes, that’s the word – deadbeat.

    Are these nice Jewish kids damaging the room in any way?

    Totally irrelevant and not suggested by me.

    I promise you the hotel knows and is implicitly allowing them to stay. They just have to be discrete in order to maintain appearances. Ask anyone that works in a hotel/convention center. They don’t care.

    No such assumptions are allowed to be made when it comes to denying someone their monetary due UNLESS they explicitly allow such behavior.

    Hence it’s not theft. Geez.

    Very sad. In fact, immature and highly selfish.

    Can you focus on the substance of the post now please?

    Applesauce. It was something about applesauce.

    No. Wait……………………….

  • Well, Shy Guy… was there a contract explicitly stating that only 2 people could use the room? Was this expressly pointed out to the registrants ahead of time? Are we going to deny these whippersnappers the opportunity to participate in the biggest Jew-do of the year because they can’t otherwise afford an exorbitantly priced room? Is leadership only for the wealthy? Are these nice Jewish kids damaging the room in any way? I promise you the hotel knows and is implicitly allowing them to stay. They just have to be discrete in order to maintain appearances. Ask anyone that works in a hotel/convention center. They don’t care. Hence it’s not theft. Geez. Can you focus on the substance of the post now please?

  • ck Says:
    November 12th, 2007 at 7:08 am
    Oh please Shy Guy. You really think the hotel doesn’t know that there are a few extra guests in the room?

    It is Jewlicious 🙂 to be honest and not steal under the forbidden and false assumption that the victim doesn’t mind.

    Go ahead. Laugh it away. See if the Ribbono Shell Olam doesn’t care.

  • Oh please Shy Guy. You really think the hotel doesn’t know that there are a few extra guests in the room? The student experience of crashing the GA in lo-rent style is almost a rite of passage for every North American student activist. Allowing such things is the price Gaylord Opryland is willing to pay in order to snag the GA’s business. Go ahead. Call the hotel and rat on “deepthroat.” See if they give a shit.

  • How Jewish of us to pay for two people and fit twelve in.

    This is thievery.

    This is disgraceful.

    This is 2000% un-Jewish.

    This is incompatible with anything having to do with “Jewish Leadership.”

  • Sorry – here’ my info:

    Ben David

    Israeli Citizen ID: 30698xxxxx

    Since we moved to Israel, the checks have been erratic – my mom complained to Malcolm Hoenlein, but got nowhere.

    Thanks!

  • …. can you PLEASE ask them what’s up with my monthly checks??!!!!

    What’s the point of getting flak for being part of the vast Zionist conspiracy if George Soros can’t get the %#($! payments out to Tribe members on time.