Hundreds of people gathered in front of the luxury hotel “The Westin” in Leipzig on Tuesday to protest. An employee allegedly rebuffed singer Gil Ofarim (39) the night before because of his Star of David on his necklace. In the meantime, the hotel has suspended the employees in question.
The musician had made serious accusations in a video post on Tuesday.
Strange action: hotel employees stood in front of the hotel with an Israel flag and a crescent moon. The Star of David, which Gil Ofarim was supposed to take off, is a symbol of Judaism, while the Israeli flag is a state symbol. It is also strange that employees hold up the Islamic crescent, although a Jew is said to have been discriminated against here because of a Jewish symbol.
Gil Ofarim (39) sits with tears in his eyes in front of the entrance to the hotel “The Westin” in Leipzig. He was in the Saxon metropolis for the filming of an MDR broadcast. But what he apparently had to endure in the luxury hotel on Monday evening is beyond comprehension. In an Instagram video, the singer explains that he was discriminated against precisely because of the Star of David on his necklace.
“I am speechless right now,” the musician and son of Israeli music legend Abi Ofarim (†2018) describes the situation. There was a huge queue at the reception because the computer was not working. “It can happen, it’s all good,” Ofarim emphasised.
He had also queued up on Monday evening, but others had been let in again and again. The hotel employee – whom Ofarim calls “Mr. W.” – explained that this was supposedly in order to reduce the queue.
“And there’s someone shouting from the corner: Wrap up your star’. And then Mr W. says: Wrap up your star’.” Only then he was allowed to check in … According to Ofarim, he first asked for the manager of the hotel. When the employee said he was not there, the musician left the hotel in a huff.
In the evening, 600 demonstrators (“No place for anti-Semitism”) gathered in front of the “Westin”. Some hotel employees, including General Manager Andreas Hachmeister, held up a banner in front of the hotel to demonstrate cosmopolitanism. But there was criticism for the banner: “After the anti-Semitic hostility against a Jew in Germany, the hotel can think of nothing else than to display the Israeli flag and symbols of Islam on a banner,” said the president of the Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster.
As the website operator of the blog “Allah’s Willing Executioners” was informed by people familiar with the hotel, the majority of the hotel employees are Muslim.
