Look, this is a wild guess. Perhaps I’m wrong. But I’d say that the stewardesses on the XL Airways flight to Eilat hadn’t met very many Jews before. Certainly that would account for their look of surprise.

You see, I like being a Jew. I’m proud of it. But I wouldn’t, hand on heart, say we were a very obedient people or an orderly one. Much about the Bible retains its mystery, but I have never had any trouble understanding why it took the Jewish people 40 years to cross a small desert. We probably spent the first decade arguing over whose car to take.

So the moment I turned up at the airport and saw a long line of my co-religionists queuing (more sort of huddling) in front of the check-in desk, I knew the flight would be a lively one.

And so it proved. “Please fasten your seat belts ready for take-off,” said the pilot, and everyone stood up to fetch their MP3 player from the overhead locker. The words “We will be passing through the plane serving a range of beverages and snacks” were heard by every passenger as a request to block the aisle. And the ask-the-steward-for-assistance lights were illuminated like Blackpool at Christmas.

I’m glad we didn’t require silence or a consensus in order to land the plane, or we’d still be up there.

Eilat, then, is full of Jews. I think we’ve established that. The question that remains is this — should anyone else bother? I’ll try to answer.

My wife and I took our two young sons (Sam, 6, and Aron, 4) to the King Solomon Hotel for a week in the October half-term. It’s only one (and not the newest: some friends were very impressed with the Royal Garden) of a number of big hotels offered by the Longwood Travel-Isrotel Hotel group combo that rules the Eilat holiday scene.

If it’s boutique hotels you’re after, this isn’t really the place for you — the Eilat coastline is dominated by huge vacation palaces. I rather like it and so do the children, but I’d understand if that wasn’t your thing.

And the other thing you have to like is people. Lots of people. Half-term coincided with Eid (the end of Ramadan) and both the King Solomon and Eilat itself were very full indeed. For much of our stay the hotel represented the future of the Middle East as designed by Bill Clinton — a swirling mixture of Jew and Arab peacefully grazing on pain au chocolat between a heavily laden breakfast buffet and a swimming pool. I haven’t seen so many chadors outside Blackburn.

I’d be kidding you if I denied that the King Solomon struggled, just a little, to cope with the number of guests. The lifts were packed. And if you were eating in the hotel or visiting reception there was a bit of queuing involved, and this isn’t a regional speciality. But it was a well-run hotel (with the exception of a baffling towel system, which I am still trying to work out and could form the subject of a travel review by itself) with a large amount of space, so the crowds never became oppressive.

I certainly hope you are a fan of children. They were in plentiful supply all over town and came in all shapes and sizes. The King Solomon kids club (“Kids’ Kingdom”) wasn’t the sort of place you could drop off your child and collect eight hours later. But it provided a cool place for a couple of hours for my two to cut up coloured paper to make a ladybird and so forth. For older kids there were copious numbers of computer games. You know the deal. And there was a water slide, too, which was very popular with Sam.

There were three good reasons why so many people, and their children, had made their way to Eilat. The first was the weather. We had a week of the best holiday weather I’ve ever experienced (this isn’t hyperbole, I’ve thought about it and this is literally true). A perfect breeze, no rain (it basically never rains in Eilat) and shorts and T-shirts all day and all evening. It was never too hot, never too cool; it was, in a word, spectacular.

The other thing about Eilat is that there is plenty to do. And not boring things that involve travelling 60 miles to view Archbishop Makarios’s birthplace only to arrive and discover why he had been so anxious to leave. No, there was a dolphin sanctuary, coral reef snorkelling, an aquarium with glass-bottomed boats, a funfair, bungee jumping, and (best of all) the clambering rocks, tin mines and desert of the Timna National Park. Big, fat, fun things, in other words, that the children loved.

And one more important thing — there’s lots of food. What did you expect? Israel is the Jewish state, after all. Eilat easily outpaces beach resort rivals in the culinary department. Step outside any of the mega-hotels and you can find a restaurant, usually good and usually competitively priced (the exchange rate of eight shekels to the pound seemed excellent). We ate out most nights, preferring the variety of the seafront to the hotel buffet.

Some visitors were using our hotel as base camp for a tour of Israel. You can do that, of course you can. But that’s not really what Eilat is for. It’s a long way to the big sites and if that’s what you are after I’d cut to the chase and stay in Jerusalem. No, what Eilat is for is to provide a first-class sun destination for families. And it does its job well.

Oh yes, just one more point. You might be worried that you are off to a war zone and need to pack a peace treaty in your hand luggage. It’s not like that, I promise. If you hadn’t heard it on the news, you wouldn’t think there was even the teensiest spot of bother.

So it depends what you are looking for, I suppose. But for a family holiday? You don’t have to be Jewish...

Need to know

How to get there: Daniel Finkelstein and family travelled with Longwood Holidays (020-8418 2525, www.longwoodholidays.co.uk).

Where to stay: A week at the King Solomon Hotel for a family of four (two adults and two children aged 2-11) is from £1,950. The cost includes half-board, flights from Luton and transfers.

The cost for a ten-night package starting on April 1, 2007 (during the school Easter holidays), in a family pool-view room, is £5,690 B&B.

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