Anti-Semitism in Leipzig: Gil Ofarim comments on the hotel scandal

Since Tuesday an alleged anti-Semitic incident in a hotel in Leipzig has been making waves. Gil Ofarim made it public. In the meantime, a hotel employee has reported the musician for defamation. In an RTL interview Ofarim now speaks again about the events.

On Monday evening Gil wanted Ofarim checked into the hotel “The Westin Leipzig” and was apparently turned away because he was wearing a chain with a Star of David around his neck. The singer with Jewish roots reported about this on Instagram the following day and was visibly moved. The video has now several million views and has been shared many times on social media.

Since then, Gil Ofarim has received encouragement from many sides. The Central Council of Jews, among others, commented on the incident not only on the Internet. Hundreds of people demonstrated against anti-Semitism in front of the hotel yesterday evening.

According to “The Westin Leipzig”, some of the hotel employees have been on leave for the time being. One of them is now accusing Ofarim of slander and threats and has filed a complaint against him. According to a spokesman for the Leipzig police, the man describes the incident as “clearly deviating from the statements made by the musician.”

Ofarim surprised by the response

Now Gil Ofarim speaks in an interview with RTL again about the events since Monday. He’s doing better now, says the 39-year-old, and the past two days have been “crazy”. “I am happy and grateful that so many people have set an example and are against anti-Semitism.” Ofarim went on to say that he wished that, but “I would never have thought that the wildfire would be so big” When the receptionist was asked to “put the star away” in order to be able to check in, he left the hotel immediately, Ofarim continued. “I didn’t want to be there anymore,” he explains. The attempt to go live with the story directly on Instagram failed due to the lack of mobile Internet. So at first he only recorded the video.

That evening, the people in charge of the TV show he had previously participated in had him picked up at the hotel, explains Ofarim. As in his Instagram post, he thanks her and his colleagues Jeanette Biedermann and Gregor Meyle, who would have stood by him afterwards.

“It happens every day”

The next morning he thought for a long time whether he should post the clip from the previous evening at all. “In the end I did it because anti-Semitism was never really gone in Germany. The problem is that it is now socially acceptable that you get such slogans in a hotel. What makes me sad: something only happens when a person in public Lebens posts something like that, but it happens every day on German streets. “

Solidarity is great, Ofarim continues. “But what will really happen afterwards? A repost is done quickly. But will something change in the future? That’s what I would like.” He doesn’t have a recipe for solving the problem of anti-Semitism. “The only thing we can do is open our mouths, show moral courage, because I was alone there. Nobody helped me or stood by my side. Education is the most important thing, you have to educate yourself early on, at home, in the schools. I think that’s the only way. “

Not the first incident in the hotel?

By the way, Gil Ofarim is not the first to experience discriminatory treatment in “The Westin Leipzig”. In response to the current incident, Piero Vecchioli, manager of Patricia Kelly, spoke up.

He explains in a statement that RTL received from one last year Hotel staff of having been insulted homophobically. Vecchioli complained that the room was not cleaned well. The manager of the hotel came up and “pounded at the door”. When Vecchioli opened the door, he looked at him from top to bottom and said: “It was because of you, you bastard, that I came up here?” he comes here.

The hotel then banned Piero Vecchioli from entering the hotel after a complaint. In an email to Patricia Kelly’s label Universal Music, the hotel said that he had “violated all the rules of the house rules” and that from now on it was “no longer the right hotel for him”.