A German hotel told an Israeli family requesting a reservation that there are “no Jews allowed,” triggering intense discussions about the presence of antisemitism in Germany, almost 100 years after the Nazi Party came to power.
The striking case was highlighted by Israel’s consul general to Southern Germany, Talya Lador-Fresher, this week.
“Are we back in the 1930s? A hotel responded to an Israeli as follows: ‘Sorry, there are no Jews allowed in our hotel.’ I’m glad that booking.com has banned this hotel from its website,” she wrote on 𝕏.
The case was widely covered by the German press, and the Upper Palatinate Police Headquarters said that the Regensburg Criminal Police opened an investigation.
The President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, called for a legal investigation. “Even though I have taken note of the apology for this unacceptable remark, it remains shocking that someone would not only think along these lines, but also put it in writing and send it.”
“You rub your eyes; you don’t want to believe it. But the sentence is real,” said Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Jewish Community of Munich and herself a Holocaust survivor.
She also specifically highlighted the context of the statement amid a string of antisemitic incidents in Europe in recent years. “In the end, it is almost secondary whether the person who wrote it sent it out of hateful intent or simple thoughtlessness, because either way it describes the reality experienced by many Jewish people—not just Israelis,” Knobloch said.
“Not even the smallest moments of everyday life are free from this burden. The realm of what is normal shrinks more and more with each passing day.”
