Jews get final laugh at ‘anti-Semitic’ Swiss hotel
Jews! To the showers! So reads the sign to “Jewish guests” at the Aparthaus, Arosa, Switzerland.
“To our Jewish guests, women, men and children, please take a shower before you go swimming. If you break the rules I’m forced to cloes [sic] the swimming pool for you.”
A second sign, this one of a fridge, says:
“For our Jewish guests: You may access the refrigerator only in the following hours: 10:00-11:00 and 16:30-17:30. I hope you understand that our team does not like being disturbed all the time.”
“Everyone had been very nice to us; suddenly we came down and saw the sign, we were in shock,” says a Jewish Israeli on Israel’s Channel 2. “It was very strange and the sort of anti-Semitic incident we have not been exposed to before.”
Ruth Thomann, the hotel’s manager, has removed the signs. The hotel tells Channel 2:
“There was no anti-Semitic intent and the signs were removed. We have no problem with Jewish guests at the hotel “
Accidental racism, unwitting, if you will.
With it so far? It all seems pretty fair. After all, the hotel accepts and welcomes Jews as guests. But then…
“The sign on the freezer was hung because only Jews used the workers’ refrigerator. The sign regarding the showers was hung after two Jewish girls entered without taking a shower, ignoring a sign addressed to all guests. Therefore, a specific sign was hung to focus their attention on this.”
Ah. You singled out the girls not for their girlishness, rather by their Jewishness. No longer two kids ignoring the rules, the miscreants are two Jews whose very Jewishness makes them offenders-in-waiting. So all Jews are hereby warned.
Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely says it’s “an anti-Semitic act of the worst and ugliest kind”. Really? She can think of no worse act of anti-Jewish hate than an unsettling sign addressing Jewish guests to shower (with all the connotations that command brings), who surely did some research before booking?
Shlomo, a haredi Jew from the Jerusalem area, counters: “I personally know the owners of the hotel and the woman in question who is accused of anti-Semitism. I have been to this hotel several times and they are as far from anti-Semitism as the far east is from the west.”
The message is not to let a misspelt sign spoil your holiday. After all, free Jews taking in the Alpine air at a place where not all that long ago Nazis felt very much at home is the best story of all.
Posted: 15th, August 2017 | In: News Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
