Kete Dan

Sisters Danelevich. Right to left: Kate, Hedwig, Elsa, Clara

Käte Danielewicz was born in Berlin on January 22, 1890 into a Jewish family, in which, besides her, there were three more sisters and one brother. She graduated from a girls' gymnasium, where her favorite subject was gymnastics. My father died in 1903, when Kate was 13 years old, and after graduating from high school, the girl began to work as a secretary to help her family ^[1] .

She joined the German Gymnastics Union, but because of her Jewry she was faced with alienation. Upon learning of the creation of the Zionist Union of Jewish Women in Gymnastics and Sports, Katé left the German Gymnastics Union and became an activist in Jewish sports. Among the founders of the Union were Hannah Tomashevskaya (later the wife of Arthur Biram ), Helena Cohen and Trudy Levy ^[2] . In her memoirs, “The Story of My Life”, which were translated from German into Hebrew by her son Dan Rosen, she wrote: “As a reward for my apparent ugliness, I have always shown tremendous energy for special achievements in various fields” ^[1] . In those same years, Katé encountered Zionist teachings and became his enthusiastic adherent.

She was sent with a group of gymnasts to the 11th Zionist Congress, which took place in Vienna in 1913, and participated in gymnastics and fencing competitions there. The march of hundreds of Jewish athletes in front of Congress participants contributed to the strengthening of Zionist identity ^[3] . In her obituary on the death of Kate Dan, her friend, architect Lotta Cohn , notes that the most important part of Kate's character was confidence, strength, temperament and a special sense of humor ^[4] .

Kate decided to realize her Zionist beliefs and participate in the construction of the Jewish state by moving to Palestine. She passed the certification exams for the title of teacher in household management. Having received an invitation to work from several local residents, among whom was the mayor of Tel Aviv Meir Dizengoff , at the age of 32 she immigrated to Eretz Yisrael ^[1] , on September 20, 1922, she left the Hamburg by boat,

The trip lasted five weeks. When Kate arrived, she lived in Tel Aviv for several months and then received the first job offer from the Joint organization : to organize a small school for orphaned girls in Safed. Later, the "school" became a "hostel", the management of which was actually the beginning of the hotel business of Kate Dan in Israel ^[2] .

The girls from 14 to 16 years old, with almost no education, gathered in the newly formed school. Kate tried to organize training while improving her Hebrew. A year later, orphaned girls moved to the children's village of Meir Shfeya , and Kate Dan became an independent entrepreneur. She believed that Safed was a great vacation spot for locals and tourists, as it had great views and cool weather. Kate Dan rented a six-room house on the main street and furnished it with some difficulty. In the arrangement of Katie, a friend, the architect Lotta Cohn, helped. Together, the new hotel became beautiful, although the quality of tourist services in it left much to be desired: the rooms did not have water and electric lighting.

In 1927, Kate Dan handed over the management of the hotel to her Berlin friend Lisa Arlozorov (sister of Chaim Arlozorov ), and went to study in Geneva. Taking advantage of this trip, she also saw her family in Germany ^[5] (it was then that her portrait of the artist Karl Jung-Dörfler was painted).

In the spring of 1928, Kate Dan returned to Safed. She decided to enlarge her hotel by renting a local large western-type house, from whose windows you could see Lake Kinneret . In front of the house was a garden with an area of dunam , in which Kate decided to make a small cafe. The house was in a grove, and a cypress avenue led to the entrance. The Arab landlord agreed to renovate the house and build another floor above it. Despite many difficulties, Kate managed to turn the building into a kind of fairy-tale palace. All rooms were equipped with water taps, and water came into the pipes from a special tank. A toilet with a water closet was also installed in the hotel, which for the then Safed was an undoubted innovation ^[1] .

Safed was a favorite summer destination due to its cool climate and breathtaking scenery. Famous people who often visited this place could fully relax in the pleasant atmosphere of the small guesthouse Kate Dan. The signboard for the guesthouse was drawn by the famous architect Alexander Berwald , who designed the old Technion building on Mount Carmel. ^[2] Many guests who visited the guesthouse Kete Dan several times established friendly relations with his mistress, which left impressions and drawings of many celebrities in the visitors' book. . So the poet Haim Nahman Bialik left several poems in the visitors' book, which were subsequently included in his poetry collections ^[1] .

Among the guests of the Katé Dan hostel were artists German Struck , Reuven Rubin and Mane Katz ^[1] .

Director of the Anglo-Palestinian Bank in London, Joseph Cowen, who stayed at a hotel in Safed, through Felix Rosenblit ( Pinhas Rosen, who later became Katé Dan's brother-in-law) invited her to expand her business and organize the same hotels as Safed in Jerusalem, Haifa and Tiberias. But all these proposals did not materialize due to the Arab riots of 1929 and the death of Joseph Cowan in 1932 ^[6] .

Arab unrest began in August 1929 in Jerusalem and spread to the rest of the country. Demonstrations of local Arabs in Safed became increasingly threatening, making it difficult even to buy basic goods for the hotel ^[3] .

It would seem that the guests who were then at the Kate Dan Hotel should immediately leave both the hotel and the city. However, the British government declared the road safety unsafe, as a result of which bus drivers refused to leave and people, along with all the Jewish inhabitants of Safed, were locked up in the city. The government banned not only the departure from Safed, but even telephone calls to other cities.

The policemen in Safed were Arabs, and the police chief demanded that the Jews not leave their homes. Among the guests of the hotel, only one, the architect Sirkin from Haifa, had a weapon. The guests closed all the windows, and established security at the front doors, but after four days it became clear that the danger was not decreasing. Pogroms attacked the Jewish quarter, from which came explosions of gasoline and oil tanks, shots and screams of victims. The government could not and did not want to protect Jewish citizens from the angry mob. Only after the murder of 18 inhabitants of the Jewish quarter did the police chief give the police orders to shoot in the air. This stopped the killings, but the looting continued. Near the hotel was the building of government services. All 3 thousand Safed Jews, as well as hotel guests, were brought here. Most of those who hid behind the walls of the government building were old people and children who had neither water nor food.

The rioters set fire to the Jewish quarter, and it burned for two days. Gangs of Arabs from the surrounding villages walked around the city and were engaged in robbery. A small number of soldiers were sent to Safed, which, however, did not change the situation. Two of the English, Kate Dan, said that there was a wine cellar in the abandoned hotel, and they agreed to accompany her to the hotel. Kate filled the car with food to feed at least the children.

Three days later, the situation began to calm down and the Jews were able to leave their shelter. Kate Dan tried to help the homeless, organized food outlets and to collect clothes and medicines. A month later, Kete Dan was forced to leave Safed forever after seven happy (according to her memoirs ^[1] ) years spent here.

Gerda Loft, the first wife of Chaim Arlozorov, summed up Kate Dan's contribution to creating a modern hotel business in Israel: “The idea of ​​a new immigrant from Germany was that the living conditions of tourists should not only be functional, but also comfortable. Curtains on the floor and multi-colored curtains on the windows, tablecloths on the tables, silverware for dinners allowed guests at a reasonable price to get the comfort that was possible only in luxury hotels belonging to hotel chains ^[7] »

According to the memoirs of Kate Dan herself, the idealistic part of her life ended in one day, and with the move to Tel Aviv, the realistic part began. To calm down from the psychological trauma she experienced in Safed, she decided to go to Berlin to rest there and visit her family, and then return to Palestine ^[1] .

In the spring of 1930, Kate Dan returned to Israel and, for starters, rented an eight-room hotel on the beach in Tel Aviv. It was a small dilapidated building, the only advantage of which was a terrace with sea views. Kete Dan has created a pleasant atmosphere here by overhauling the building and decorating it. Among the regular guests here were Moshe Zmora , later the first president of the Supreme Court, and Felix Rosenblit ( Pinchas Rosen) , later the first Minister of Justice of the State of Israel and the future father-in-law of Kete Dan. For two years of operation of the old hotel, Kate Dan prepared everything necessary for the construction of her own hotel ^[2] . Taking a loan from the Anglo-Palestinian Bank and the General Mortgage Bank, she bought a plot of land on 97 Yarkon Street in Tel Aviv and built a two-story hotel building there according to the plan of her friend, architect Lotta Cohn ^[1] . In her memoirs, Lotta Cohn wrote that both friends were fascinated by the dream of building the best hotel in the city.

On September 26, 1932, the Tel Aviv City Council approved the Lotte Kon architectural plan for the construction of the Kete Dan Guesthouse, a two-story building with 14 rooms and two balconies. Payment for the work of the architect Lotta Cohn amounted to 5% of the total amount ^[2] . Kate Dan personally monitored the technical equipment of the new hotel and the perfection of the interior design. GBP 183,000 was allocated for the installation of plumbing and heating, and GBP 36,000 was spent on furniture. The furniture was supposed to be not only functional, but also exceptionally beautiful. Upholstery material was ordered abroad, as well as many pieces of furniture and accessories that were not produced then in Palestine, such as porcelain sets, silver cutlery and more. Each room had a telephone; the entire hotel was heated using central heating. At the time of construction, in 1933, Kete Dan was the most modern hotel in Tel Aviv. In March 1933, the announcement of its opening was published in the magazine Mitteilungsblatt for Jewish immigrants to Palestine from Central Europe, and even a documentary movie was filmed where viewers could see a coffee terrace, dance floor, balconies and beautiful rooms with sea views ^{[2 ]} .

This was the time when Hitler came to power in Germany, and mass immigration from central Europe began. As a result, the hotel was fully occupied, and during the year, Kate Dan returned all the loans. In the second year, she added a hotel, adding a third floor. The issue of nutrition was also important. The hotel kitchen had modern equipment, European dishes were prepared here, which facilitated the acclimatization of immigrants. Thanks to all of the above, Kete Dan was a model Palestinian hotel. ^[2] .

Shortly after the opening of the hotel, in June 1933, a tragic event occurred, the assassination of Chaim Arlozorov. Arlozorov and his wife had lunch on the hotel terrace, and then went to the beach for a short walk, where Arlozorov was shot dead.

The Kete Dan Hotel has become the center of cultural life in Tel Aviv. Every Friday evening, dancing evenings were held here, to which even residents of neighboring cities came. In 1936, the Palestinian (subsequently Israeli) Philharmonic Orchestra was organized under the direction of Bronislaw Huberman . Huberman lived at the Kete Dan Hotel and was a problem guest. Due to its sensitivity to noise, during his stay no one was lodged in the neighboring rooms, and the staff passed on his tiptoes. In addition, for better sound insulation, the doors of his room were covered with thick carpets.

Other famous musicians, Arturo Toscanini and Felix Weingartner , also lived in the hotel. But they behaved more restrained, and their presence at the hotel pleased all visitors. So, Isai Dobroveinu during his stay was remembered for asking to bring the piano in his room, which he played, entertaining guests and staff with wonderful music.

The outbreak of World War II changed the nature of life at the hotel. During the bombing of Tel Aviv by Italian planes on September 9 , 1940, the hotel was damaged by bomb fragments that destroyed the glass roof of the hall and stairwell. After that, 22 guests were relocated to another hotel, and the lower floor was completely renovated. Meanwhile, as a result of hostilities, both foreign and domestic tourism ceased, and only British and Australians were guests of the hotel ^[2] .

Kate Dan hotels in Safed and Tel Aviv were favorite places to relax and meet many prominent personalities and Jewish Yishuv figures in the 1920s. Among the guests were: poet Haim Nachman Bialik, economist and sociologist Franz Oppenheimer , architect Alexander Berwald , buyer of land in the Galilee, one of the founders of the HaShomer organization, one of the leaders of the Hagana, Iosif Nakhmani , archaeologist Nahum Slush , professor Hebrew University Eliezer Lipa Sukenik , Jacob Israel de Haan , Chaim Margaliot-Kalwarii , composer Erich Walter Sternberg , Writer Nathan Bystritsky (Agmon) , Zalman David Levontin and many others.

In 1934, Kate Dan married Joseph Rosenblit (later Rosen), the brother of Pinchas Rosenblit ( Pinhas Rosen ). Her son Dan Rosen was born in 1935. In 1937, Kate Dan went to Belgium with her son to the resort to meet there with her family and introduce her parents to her grandson, because she was afraid to come to Germany. Her last trip to her homeland took place in 1938, when she went for a few days to visit her sick mother in Dusseldorf.

Her family did not leave Germany. Mother died in 1940, her two sisters were sent to the Minsk ghetto, where they died. One of her sisters, Hedwig, one of the first female doctors in Germany, married the artist Karl Jung-Dörfler and converted to Christianity, which, however, did not save them. Since such a family was considered Jewish by the Nuremberg racial laws , Karl, with his wife and sister Elsa, was deported to the Minsk ghetto , where they were all killed in 1941. ^[5] Kate’s third sister, Klara, was also married to a Christian. They tried to escape from Germany, and died during the bombing. The only surviving member of the Kete Dan family was her brother Richard, who arrived in Palestine two weeks before Kristallnacht in 1938. He immigrated with his eldest daughter Lotte (later Lotte Noam).

In 1943, when the hotel was fully booked, Kate Dan received an order from the British military authorities to expropriate the hotel for the Royal Air Force headquarters ^[1] . All attempts to cancel the order, including those made at the highest level, were unsuccessful, and for the second time in her career, Kate Dan in the hotel business was interrupted.

After the war, the hotel was returned to the mistress, but attempts to revive its former glory were unsuccessful. Having lost all hope, Katy Dan sold the WIZO building, and in 1947 it was bought by the brothers Samuel and Iekutiel Federman, who decided to build a new modern hotel on this site that would inherit the glory and name of the former. During the demolition of the old building, Iekutiel Federman organized a gala event in honor of Kate Dan, where he praised her activities. The name of the former hotel was not only preserved, but gave the name of the whole now thriving hotel chain. In the lobby of the Tel Aviv Dan Hotel, visitors see an enlarged photograph of the former Kate Dan Hotel.

After the sale of the hotel, Kate Dan moved with her family to Haifa, where her son Dan Rosen began his studies at the Technion . Her husband, Joseph Rosenblit, passed away in 1953. Kete Dan lived in Haifa, volunteered, studied painting with Zvi Mayrovich and joined the Union of Artists. Kata Dan died at the age of 88 in 1978 and was buried in Haifa.