Kosher Panama: Food, Shabbat and Jewish Panama

Our Panama trip

Eight days in Panama, July 2027

One escorted trip in July, with the group and an English-speaking guide: seven nights in one hotel in Panama City, with day trips from it.

Panama City and the Panama Canal

Panama, July 2027

Dates

July 12–19, 2027

From

$4,500 per person

Kosher Tour of Panama, July 2027

Dates and from-price are the ones published today, per person sharing a double room, in US dollars. The trip page carries the full itinerary, the hotel, the price and the terms.

Kashrut

Kosher food in Panama: how every meal is covered

Every meal on the trip is Glatt Kosher Mehadrin, three a day, and a minyan is arranged three times a day throughout.

Panama City has a range of kosher restaurants, serving meat, dairy, Mediterranean and Italian food, and the group eats dinner at them over the week. On Shabbat you eat with the local Jewish community. Tell us about any allergy or dietary need when you inquire.

Panama City

Kosher Panama City: one hotel, seven nights

The group stays seven nights at the JW Marriott, a five-star hotel in Panama City, so you unpack once.

The day trips to Gamboa, the Chagres River, the Caribbean coast near Colón and San Carlos all return to the same room every evening. Dinners are at the city's kosher restaurants, and the guide leads the group from the first evening in Casco Viejo to the last morning at the Miraflores Locks.

Jewish Panama

The Jewish community in Panama: an old community in a modern city

Jews have been in Panama since the sixteenth century, when converts from Spain and Portugal came to the isthmus. The country's first synagogue, Kol Shearith Israel, was founded in 1876 in Colón.

Today the community is centered in Panama City and numbers around 15,000. Panama is the only country outside Israel to have had two Jewish heads of state, Max Delvalle in 1967 and Eric Arturo Delvalle from 1985 to 1988.

Shabbat with the community

On Friday the group visits the community's institutions and neighborhoods, then joins Friday night services at Ahavat Sion and a Shabbat dinner. Shabbat lunch is with the community, with the afternoon at your own pace until Shabbat ends.

Casco Viejo

Casco Viejo: the colonial quarter

The first walk of the trip is through Casco Viejo, the restored colonial quarter of Panama City.

Colorful streets, plazas, cafés and old buildings with iron balconies, with the towers of the modern city across the bay.

The canal

The Panama Canal: the Miraflores Locks and Gatun Lake

The canal opened on 15 August 1914 and runs 82 kilometers (51 miles) between the Atlantic and the Pacific. You see it twice.

On the second day a boat crosses Gatun Lake, the artificial lake made by damming the Chagres River, with ships passing through the canal beside you, on the way to Monkey Island. On the last morning the group visits the Miraflores Locks to watch ships pass between the Atlantic and the Pacific and to hear how the canal was built.

Rainforest and coast

The rainforest, the Chagres River and the Caribbean

At Gamboa you choose between a zipline and an aerial tram over the rainforest canopy. A traditional piragua canoe takes the group up the Chagres River, with a short walk to a waterfall and a visit to an Emberá village for its music, dance and way of life. A day at a beachfront resort on the Caribbean coast near Colón offers white sand and clear water, and a full day off-road through San Carlos takes in jungle tracks, beaches and waterfalls. February is in Panama's dry season.

Kosher Tour of Panama, July 2027

Questions

Questions travelers ask about kosher Panama