Хостел «Агрон»

This is an orthodox Jewish hotel. I had booked in with my mother on a Saturday and had apparently missed the email saying we could not book in until 10pm (despite Shabbat ending around 8). We turned up at 5pm (after a day trip with another very friendly hostel on the other side of town) and were it not for a lovely orthodox young man who was passing by and happened to see us getting stone-walled by the security guard, we would not have been allowed past the front gate. Unlike the staff of the Agron hotel this young man sympathised with the fact that we were strangers in a strange land and had no clue of the customs (which were, I add, unique to this hotel...the other hostel checked people in throughout the day and there is nothing under hotel policies on the Agron website to indicate that they are so strict). When we eventually were allowed in the staff made us feel really small for not appreciating that this was Israel on Shabbat (despite it not saying anything about checking in on Shabbat on the Agron webpages) and we were repeatedly told we could not cancel our booking despite the fact we couldn’t book in and were utterly exhausted...my mother is 70. However with the young man’s help we managed to cancel our booking and return to our previous hostel (who were lovely). This was a really poor experience in an otherwise amazing trip to Israel. Hotel Agron have every right to keep Shabbat however they want, but if they are encouraging foreigners to book into their hotel they should make their policies much clearer.