Gil Ofarim: Hotel employee with Israel flag - Central Council of Jews criticizes Leipzig hotel

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Westin employee with banner: "More than irritated"

Photo: Dirk Knofe / dpa

After the anti-Semitism allegations against the Westin Hotel in Leipzig, the Central Council of Jews criticized the company's reaction.

"After the anti-Semitic hostility towards a Jew in Germany, the hotel can think of nothing else than to print the Israeli flag and symbols of Islam on a banner," said the President of the Central Council, Josef Schuster, of the German Press Agency.

The Leipzig synagogue is within walking distance of the hotel.

Ofarim had previously reported in an Instagram video that an employee at the Westin Hotel in Leipzig had asked him to wrap his chain with a Star of David.

Then he can check in.

His video caused a sensation nationwide.

As a result, employees of the hotel held up a banner in front of the building on Tuesday evening at a solidarity rally, on which the flag of Israel and the Islamic crescent could be seen next to the hotel name.

Schuster said there was apparently little awareness at the hotel that Jews were part of German society.

"We are also more than irritated that the hotel has not yet made a clear apology to Gil Ofarim."

The police started investigations and, according to their own statements, wanted to submit the documents to the public prosecutor for a legal review on Wednesday.

Employee on leave

The Westin Hotel has now responded and put two employees on leave for the duration of the criminal investigation, said a spokeswoman for the Marriott group to which the house belongs.

In response to a request from SPIEGEL, she said that the hotel's team was holding talks with everyone who was present at the time in question.

The hotel is in close contact with Ofarim's management.

After the allegations became known, hundreds of people gathered in front of the hotel on Tuesday evening.

They wanted to express solidarity with the musician and Jewish people in Germany.

Ofarim's video was widely shared on social media, and a number of politicians spoke out.

Saxony's Interior Minister Roland Wöller (CDU) hopes that the musician will file a complaint so that the police can investigate the process: "Saxony is a cosmopolitan country."

Economics Minister Martin Dulig (SPD) wrote on Twitter that it made him angry what happened to Ofarim.

He spoke for the vast majority of the people in Saxony when he apologized on behalf of the anti-Semitic humiliation.

Ofarim is a German rock musician and the son of the Israeli singer Abi Ofarim, who died in 2018, and his third wife Sandra.

Gil Ofarim also works as an actor and has appeared in series such as "Gute Zeiten, Bad Zeiten" or TV formats such as "Let's Dance".

jpz / dpa