German Hotel Told Israeli Travelers “No Jews Allowed” — Then Claimed It Was Just Fighting Fake Bookings

Israeli travelers tried to book Hotel zum Hirschen in Bavaria, near the Czech border. They received a message back: “Sorry, there are no Jews allowed in our hotel.”

The travelers complained to Booking.com and contacted the Israeli consulate in Munich. Booking.com temporarily removed the hotel from its platform.

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 @bookingcom has banned this hotel from its website.

The hotel initially denied sending the message, then acknowledged that an employee had sent it and apologized to the guest, with a manager saying “That is absolutely not our worldview.” The hotel invited the guest for a free week to “prove” they are not people who discriminate.

However, the property justified its response by saying it has been dealing with fake bookings and phishing attempts involving stolen user data, and that it had assumed the Israeli request was fake. “No Jews allowed” though is not a normal anti-fraud response.

The hotel complains it is now receiving threats and that Booking.com removal is a “huge problem” for the business. I’m not sure I feel sympathy.


Credit: Hotel zum Hirschen

I just wrote about Israelis being called ‘baby killers’ at check-in at a California hotel because a clerk saw their passports as IDs. The clerk was fired and leveraged that for a social platform raising money for himself from antisemites.

This wasn’t concern for babies, since Syria hasn’t really generated an outcry, though it was the most devastating Arab catastrophe of the modern era forcing more than 13 million people from their homes with at least over 306,000 civilian deaths between 2011 and 2021 (though some estimates place this several times higher). Palestinians in particular were brutalized by the Assad regime, cutting off food and medicine to Palestinian refugees and using starvation as an explicit tool of war.

Israelis have been banned from the Maldives. This wasn’t banning world leaders they disagree with, it was banning all citizens of the Jewish state. New Zealand demanded disclosure of Israeli’s military involvement to enter the country (military service is mandatory).

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. No Jews, or no Israelis? Like, are they antisemitic, or merely xenophobic? /s

    Either way, excluding paying customers is a bad way to run a business.

  2. Gary I realize you are Jewish but best to leave the political stories out as many aren’t sympathic. I know it has a “travel angle” but the underlying message is about discrimination against Jews. Don’t see you posting every possible story about discrimination against all other groups so best to give it a rest.

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