Swiss police are investigating after a ski shop put up a sign saying it would no longer rent equipment to Jews.
The hotel-restaurant at the Pischa mountain station, near Davos, said it was stopping lending gear to our “Jewish brothers” after some “very annoying incidents” including the alleged theft of a sled.
The sign was in Hebrew and appeared aimed at the growing number of Israeli Jews visiting the resort in recent years.
Davos is well known for hosting the annual winter meeting of business and political leaders.
Police in the Graubunden region said they had started an investigation over potential violation of discrimination and incitement to hatred laws.
“The poster is undisputedly discriminatory,” said Jonathan Kreutner, head of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities. “This is antisemitism.”
He added: “An entire group of guests is being collectively labelled because of their appearance and origin.”
Legal action
Mr Kreutner said the federation was planning legal action but would probably wait for the regional prosecutor to investigate.
Pischa hotel-restaurant told Swiss website Blick the sign had “nothing to do with antisemitism” and that it had many “wonderful” Jewish guests.
However, it apologised and said the sign was badly worded. It’s now been taken down.
It originally told local media it was having problems with equipment being left on the slopes or sometimes not returned at all.
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The head of the Davos tourism agency was reportedly quoted in a local newspaper last year as saying some Jewish tourists “clearly have difficulty accepting and respecting the rules of living together here”.
He gave the example of littering and said “rules are unfortunately not adhered to, especially by Orthodox Jews”.
Mr Kreutner said the increasing number of Jewish people holidaying in Davos indicated they “clearly feel very comfortable” there.
But he said others appeared to “have a completely different attitude towards Jewish guests” and it’s “obvious that there is a lot going wrong here”.
Switzerland Tourism spokesman Markus Berger told Blick the sign was an “unfortunate incident” and said there wasn’t a “systemic problem” with antisemitism in its mountain resorts.
