Back in October, we wrote about a German musician, Gil Ofarim, who said he tried to check into the Hotel Westin in Leipzig, Germany. Ofarim, who is Jewish, was wearing a necklace with a Star of David pendant. He said that workers at the front desk refused to check him in unless he put away/hid his Star of David necklace first.
Lots of things happened regarding the story the weeks after that, including a plot twist that I think no one expected. Here’s everything that happened in October.
It’s been about 6 months since the debacle was said to have happened and yowsa, have things gone off the rail!
First, unfortunately, anti-Semitism is alive and well in Germany (as well as in other places, including the U.S., but that’s for a different blog). Ofarim’s claims of what happened to him weren’t nearly as bad as what has been said and done to Jews in Germany in the past few years (the Holocaust was less than a century ago – why don’t humans learn from their past?). However he is a “name” in Germany, as was his father, folk singer Abi Ofarim, so claims of anti-Semitism against him brought everything up to the surface again.
Meanwhile, politicians and community leaders were practically falling over themselves to condemn the incident. Some called for the nefarious hotel employee to be fired. Katja Meier, the Minister of Justice in Saxony (where Leipzig is located), even went as far as to say, “This open anti-Semitism in the Hotel Westin in Leipzig is unspeakable and unbearable. It must have consequences—and an apology is not enough.”
Unfortunately, within a couple of weeks, Ofarim’s story began to untangle.
- CCTV footage from the Westin hotel’s lobby was published in German news outlets. It showed that Ofarim wasn’t wearing, at least not outside his shirt, the Star of David necklace he claimed had been why the front desk worker made his anti-Semitic comment.
- The same clerk filed a defamation suit against Ofarim the day after the alleged incident.
- Two other hotel employees, as well as three guests who were interviewed said that the incident Ofarim said happened, didn’t.
- Five witnesses said during a police investigation that Ofarim had used swear words against the hotel while in the lobby, threatening staff to “post an Instagram video that will go viral.”
- Ofarim’s story began to change and become more vague. Instead of saying he had been wearing his necklace outside his shirt, where it was showing, his wording changed to, “Anyone who knows me knows that I always wear the Star of David.” Meanwhile, when confronted with the footage, Ofarim explained that the exclamation came from behind, and that it was not about the star or the chain, but “about something far bigger.” He also claimed the hotel did not release the whole footage.
Once the Leipzig prosecutor’s probe was completed, it was determined that Ofarim lied. That it, “did not actually happen.”
The Westin employee has been exonerated.
Instead, Ofarim now stands accused of libel and defamation. It could land him in jail if sentenced.
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