German national carrier Lufthansa was fined $4 million by the US Department of Transportation on Tuesday 128 Jewish passengers were shot An airline employee from one flight reportedly fumed that “everyone has to pay” for the mistakes of some people.
The airline allegedly discriminated against a group of Orthodox Jewish passengers — who were wearing traditional black attire — when they tried to board in Frankfurt during a stopover for a trip from New York’s JFK Airport to Budapest, Hungary in May 2022. Was doing.
Some passengers reportedly violated the airline’s mask policy, leading a Lufthansa employee to shout that “everyone will have to pay” for the mistakes of some people and to be considered “Jews coming from JFK”. “Everyone” will be banned. connecting flight, according to a video of the incident that went viral at the time.
An airline employee was seen telling passengers that “Jews were the ones who messed up, who created the problems.”
Although many passengers did not know each other or were not traveling together, connecting flights refused boarding to people whom staff determined were Jewish because they were wearing yarmulkes. Or had side curls, known as a P.ayot German media reported in Hebrew.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement, “No one should face discrimination while traveling and today’s action sends a clear message to the airline industry that we will investigate whenever passengers’ civil rights are violated. And ready to take action.”
The incident led Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the Biden-Harris administration’s special envoy against anti-Semitism, to condemn the airline for “classic anti-Semitism.”
,[When] The first time I heard it, I said, ‘Oh, that would be wrong.’ ‘Someone must be misrepresenting it.’ And then of course, it turned out to be exactly right – and worse than we thought,” Lipstadt, the renowned Holocaust historian, said at the time.
“If any airline had done this, it would have been outrageous. But this terrible, terrible irony coming from the German national airline was insulting.
The Orthodox group was participating in a pilgrimage to the grave sites of prominent rabbinical figures in Eastern Europe.
Under the consent order, Lufthansa agreed to pay $2 million and the Department of Transportation said it would credit the airline for $2 million it had paid to passengers as compensation.
The airline issued an apology soon after the incident.
“We regret that the large group was denied boarding instead of being limited to non-compliant guests,” the airline said.
“We have zero tolerance for racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination of any kind.”
The anti-Semitism commissioner of the state of Hesse, where Frankfurt is located, sharply condemned the incident.
Uwe Becker said that apparently a whole group of people – simply because of their recognizable belief – were held responsible for something that apparently only affected individual passengers.
Baker said, “This is discriminatory and no trivial matter, and all the more reason why the company’s top management should also feel personally responsible for apologizing for this incident and taking a clear and unambiguous stance “
Rabbi Yehuda Teichtel, the rabbi of Berlin and head of the local Chabad community, said German companies should be sensitive to potential anti-Semitism in light of the country’s Nazi past.
Teichtel welcomed the fact that Lufthansa’s chief executive, Carsten Spohr, had called him to apologise.
with post wire
