Budva, Montenegro, has become more than a quiet Adriatic summer resort. A beach there was recently named one of Europe’s best, and around the Dukley Hotel & Resort, a luxury complex on the Zavale Peninsula, a small but active Jewish and Israeli community has grown around Chabad, making the area feel, in the writer’s words, like a “home away from home.” Montenegro has only about 500 to 600 Jews, most of them in the capital, Podgorica, and some arrived from Russia after the war in Ukraine.
Dukley was built on a former vacation apartment complex abandoned after an economic crisis. In 2010, Nahum Himelfarb, a wealthy Jewish businessman from Uzbekistan who made his fortune in the United States, bought and renovated it. The resort opened officially in 2015 and now includes about 50 smart, individually designed villas and apartments, 15 standard hotel rooms, and high-end duplex penthouses. Prices start at 774 euros a night for two with breakfast and can reach 4,000 euros for a four-bedroom penthouse villa. From September, rates reportedly drop by as much as 50%.
The property also offers three private beaches, a Japanese restaurant called Sumosan, pools, a spa, a gym, and 24-hour buggy service. Families get a kids’ club and nanny services. Across from it, the four-star Harmony Hotel offers a lower-priced option, with rooms and suites at 120 to 200 euros per night in peak season.
What makes the site especially notable for Jewish travelers is the Chabad center opened in August 2022 in memory of Himelfarb’s parents. Rabbi Eliezer Arnfeld and his family run it, providing kosher food, a synagogue, a kosher grocery with Israeli brands, Sabbath accommodations, bar mitzvahs, and the only synagogue in the area. There is also a kosher restaurant, “Shalom,” and even an eruv, allowing observant Jews to move around on Shabbat. Arnfeld said the center expects about 150 to 170 people for Friday night dinners each week in season, at a cost of 280 shekels per person.
Beyond the resort, Budva’s old town is about 2,500 years old, and Dukley runs a free five-minute sea shuttle there. Nearby attractions include Kotor, a UNESCO World Heritage site, the waterfront village of Perast and its island church, and Tivat, known for luxury boutiques and a large marina.
