Germany's national carrier Lufthansa was fined $4 million by the U.S. Department of Transportation on Tuesday for removing 128 Jewish passengers from a plane, although several airline employees reportedly He was reportedly furious, saying “everyone has to pay” for the mistake.
The airline allegedly discriminated against a group of Orthodox Jewish passengers wearing traditional black clothing who were boarding a flight in Frankfurt during a trip from New York's JFK Airport to Budapest, Hungary in May 2022. Ru.
Some passengers allegedly violated the airline's mask policy, and a Lufthansa employee said “we all have to pay” for the mistakes of several people, adding, “The JFK graduate He yelled that “everyone” deemed to be “Jewish” would be prohibited from wearing masks. It was a connecting flight, according to a video of the incident that went viral online at the time.
An airline employee was also seen telling a passenger, “Jews are the ones who caused the problem.''
Although many of the passengers did not know each other or were not traveling together, the passengers who officials determined were Jewish because they wore yarmulkes or had side curls called p. I was denied boarding on my connecting flight.still German media reported in Hebrew.
“No one should face discrimination while traveling,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. “Today's action reassures the airline industry that we stand ready to investigate and take action whenever a passenger's civil rights are violated.” It sends a clear message.”
Following the incident, Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the Biden-Harris administration's special envoy to counter anti-Semitism, accused the airline of “classic anti-Semitism.”
“[When] When I first heard that, I thought, “Oh, this must be wrong.” Someone must have misreported this. 'And of course it turned out to be exactly right, and it was worse than we thought,'' noted Holocaust historian Lipstadt said at the time.
“If the airlines had done that, it would have been outrageous. But this gross, gross sarcasm from Germany's national airline was outrageous.”
A group of Orthodox Christians were taking part in a pilgrimage to the tombs of prominent Eastern European rabbis.
Under the consent order, Lufthansa agreed to pay $2 million, and the Department of Transportation announced that it would credit Lufthansa with the $2 million it paid in compensation to passengers.
The airline quickly issued an apology shortly after the incident.
The airline said, “We regret that we denied boarding to large groups, not just those who did not comply.''
“We have zero tolerance for racism, anti-Semitism or discrimination of any kind.”
The anti-Semitism commissioner for the state of Hesse, where Frankfurt is located, strongly condemned the incident.
Uwe Becker said that an entire group of people – because of their discernible beliefs – were clearly held responsible for something that clearly affected only individual travelers.
“This is discriminatory and not trivial, which is why the company's management should feel a personal responsibility to apologize for this incident and take a clear and unambiguous stand,” Becker said. .
Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, a Berlin rabbi and head of the local Chabad community, said German companies should be sensitive to potential anti-Semitism given their Nazi past.
Teichtal welcomed the fact that Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr had called him to apologize.
with post wire
