German Airline Bans Jews From Flying

[SimplyMe]

This may be one of the craziest stories I've heard; worse are the videos that appear to substantiate the claims made by the author.

"Allegedly, Lufthansa refused to allow any of the Jews from that flight onto their connecting flight to Budapest, while non-Jews were free to continue on their journeys. Two dozen armed police officers ensured that no Jews boarded the flight or caused issues at the gate."

Apparently Lufthansa flight crew flying a 747 between New York (JFK) and Frankfurt, Germany were frustrated with some passengers not wearing their masks on the flight -- as required by the airline on that flight. From passengers on the plane, it was a small number of both Jews and non-Jews that weren't wearing masks but the pilot of the flight (unclear if he was using information given by a flight attendant) blamed the Jews and blocked them from catching any connecting flight on Lufthansa. No non-Jews were blocked from a connecting flight.

Apparently, after the decision was reviewed, a decision was made to ban all of the Jews from that flight from any Lufthansa flight for 24 hours. Also, at least one passenger was allegedly told that since he "missed" his connecting flight to Poland (which he was not allowed to board), when he tried to catch his flight home he was told his ticket was cancelled and he'd have to buy another ticket for his flight home.

I'll be interested to see if more information is released in the coming days but, at least based on the videos that appear to support the story, this does not look good for Lufthansa. It is sad to see this type of discrimination, if the story is true, on a western airline in the 21st Century.

 

[FireDragon76]

Is this a story about anti-Semitism, or an all-too-common story about COVIDiots defying common-sense precautions, and the pilot-in-command making a judgement call for the safety of passengers?

 

[SimplyMe]

Is this a story about anti-Semitism, or an all-too-common story about COVIDiots defying common-sense precautions, and the pilot-in-command making a judgement call for the safety of passengers?

It seems to be a story about anti-Semitism, from what we know of it. From reports we have so far, there was very little in the way of COVIDiots; though you can question the veracity of the various passengers, they report that only a few were not wearing masks.

The pilot's decision seemed to have nothing to do with safety of passengers -- at most he seem to have made an announcement during the flight for passengers to wear their masks and then, after the flight was over, called for only the Jewish passengers (again, allegedly as many non-Jews were not wearing masks as Jews) to be denied the right to fly on connecting flights.

 

[Kylie]

Given that there were some non-Jewish people also affected, it seems to be an issue with mask compliance, not anti-Semitism. Report: German Airline Refuses To Fly Jews After Various Passengers Refused To Wear Masks - View from the Wing

 

[wing2000]

Given that there were some non-Jewish people also affected, it seems to be an issue with mask compliance, not anti-Semitism. Report: German Airline Refuses To Fly Jews After Various Passengers Refused To Wear Masks - View from the Wing

I agree. From your linked article:

Dan Eleff estimates that there were 135 – 170 Jews on the Lufthansa Boeing 747-8 making a pilgrimage to the gravesite of Rabbi Yeshaya Steiner. He had numerous conversations and has significant video of the incidents, which conflicts with Lufthansa’s statements.

Reportedly a group of Jews in business class weren’t masked.

It seems to me the number of non-mask-compliant members of the jewish group led to the Lufthansa making decision based on the the group....

 

[SimplyMe]

Given that there were some non-Jewish people also affected, it seems to be an issue with mask compliance, not anti-Semitism. Report: German Airline Refuses To Fly Jews After Various Passengers Refused To Wear Masks - View from the Wing

So who were the non-Jews not allowed to travel, and considering this statement in the article, "And passengers who appeared Jewish, or who had Jewish-sounding names, were banned from their connecting flight" (emphasis from the article), did those non-Jews have "Jewish sounding names?"

Why were Jews from that flight -- regardless of their compliance with masks -- banned from their next flights but not non-Jewish passengers on the flight?

I agree. From your linked article:

Dan Eleff estimates that there were 135 – 170 Jews on the Lufthansa Boeing 747-8 making a pilgrimage to the gravesite of Rabbi Yeshaya Steiner. He had numerous conversations and has significant video of the incidents, which conflicts with Lufthansa’s statements.

Reportedly a group of Jews in business class weren’t masked.

It seems to me the number of non-mask-compliant members of the jewish group led to the Lufthansa making decision based on the the group....

So because a relatively small number of Jews in Business class were not masked (Business class being a relatively small section of a 747) then all Jews should be denied their connecting flights? The article also mentions that not all Jews were part of that "group" but they were also denied boarding their connecting flights. Also, if they were going to blame the "group" -- should not all passengers on the flight have been blocked from catching their connecting flights (since non-Jews also went unmasked) and not just the Jews, if we are going to punish the "group" for the non-compliance of a few? Or why not just block the Jews that had sat in that section of Business Class?

 

[wing2000]

So because a relatively small number of Jews in Business class were not masked (Business class being a relatively small section of a 747) then all Jews should be denied their connecting flights? The article also mentions that not all Jews were part of that "group" but they were also denied boarding their connecting flights. Also, if they were going to blame the "group" -- should not all passengers on the flight have been blocked from catching their connecting flights (since non-Jews also went unmasked) and not just the Jews, if we are going to punish the "group" for the non-compliance of a few? Or why not just block the Jews that had sat in that section of Business Class?

I agree, that in hindsight, there are some inconsistencies. However, I'm not ready to imply ill motive without further details of the decisions made by Lufthansa's operational staff on the fly....

 

[Aryeh Jay]

That's what they get for not flying El Al.

 

[Kylie]

So who were the non-Jews not allowed to travel, and considering this statement in the article, "And passengers who appeared Jewish, or who had Jewish-sounding names, were banned from their connecting flight" (emphasis from the article), did those non-Jews have "Jewish sounding names?"

Why were Jews from that flight -- regardless of their compliance with masks -- banned from their next flights but not non-Jewish passengers on the flight?

Why do you think I have the answers to these questions?

All I did was provide a source which gives a different viewpoint on what happened. Now you're demanding that I answer questions about it.

 

[SimplyMe]

Why do you think I have the answers to these questions?

All I did was provide a source which gives a different viewpoint on what happened. Now you're demanding that I answer questions about it.

You stated, "it seems to be an issue with mask compliance, not anti-Semitism." So, the questions are merely so you can explain why it isn't anti-Semitism when Jews who remained masked were not allowed to board flights, with a Lufthansa representative recorded stating that all Jews were being punished because of those that did not mask, when that same thing didn't happen to non-Jews.

To me, the fact that Jews (and those with Jewish sounding names) were singled out for harsher punishment -- particularly those who were not guilty -- says that it was clearly anti-semitic. My questions are merely so you can defend your claim that it wasn't. To be fair, I'm not claiming the entire airline is anti-Semetic, merely that the policy on that day was.

 

[Nithavela]

I'd pump the breaks a bit on this topic. German news media are very quick to report on perceived antisemitism, even if the real issue was something else.

A couple of months ago, we had a jewish singer claiming he was discriminated against because of his jewish pendant. There was a huge media brouhaha. After a few weeks, it came out that video footage of the incident proved he wasn't wearing a pendant at the time at all and that there were a lot of other questions.

Of course at that time, the "discriminating" hotel in question had suffered almost irreperable reputation damage.

 

[Kylie]

You stated, "it seems to be an issue with mask compliance, not anti-Semitism." So, the questions are merely so you can explain why it isn't anti-Semitism when Jews who remained masked were not allowed to board flights, with a Lufthansa representative recorded stating that all Jews were being punished because of those that did not mask, when that same thing didn't happen to non-Jews.

To me, the fact that Jews (and those with Jewish sounding names) were singled out for harsher punishment -- particularly those who were not guilty -- says that it was clearly anti-semitic. My questions are merely so you can defend your claim that it wasn't. To be fair, I'm not claiming the entire airline is anti-Semetic, merely that the policy on that day was.

I said it seems to be an issue with mask compliance because the article said, "A large group of Jewish passengers were kept from traveling on a Lufthansa connecting flight to Budapest on Wednesday after some Jewish passengers – and some non-Jews – had mask compliance issues on board Lufthansa’s flight 401 from New York JFK to Frankfurt."

I'm not an expert in the situation, and I know nothing about it that has not already been posted here. If you want answers to your questions, you'll have to ask Lufthansa.