Many Jewish travelers headed out on a trip to Kerestir, Hungary, for the yahrzeit of Reb Shayale Kerestirer last week. But a plane full of those travelers found themselves inconvenienced and overcharged when personnel from the German airline Lufthansa decided to apply collective punishment to almost all the Jews on the flight, according to eyewitness reports and videos.
There were over 150 Jews flying from New York City to Frankfurt on Lufthansa Flight 401 last Wednesday, where they would be transferring to a flight to Budapest, when flight attendants reportedly became angry at the behavior of a minority of Jewish travelers aboard who were not wearing masks to the satisfaction of the flight attendants. Some Jews davening in the aisles were also criticized by the flight crew.
Despite the fact that the flight attendants had criticism for the actions of just a few of the travelers, when the plane arrived in Frankfurt, the Jews onboard found that Lufthansa would not allow almost any of the Jewish travelers—except two whose mode of dress was less recognizably Jewish—onto the connecting flight to Budapest, with police officers ensuring that the Jews could not catch their flight. Lufthansa also apparently banned almost all of them from any other flight that day.
A Lufthansa personnel member was recorded telling the group of Jews, “You know why your tickets were canceled”—even though almost none of the people involved had any complaints against them.
The discrimination was even more clear in a video, posted on the Dan’s Deals website, which showed a supervisor telling a Jewish man that all the Jews on the flight were being restricted from going on the next flight because “Jewish people who were the mess, who made the problems” and because “it was one, everyone has to pay for a couple.”
A number of Jewish passengers on the flight told Ami that the behavior of the Lufthansa personnel onboard the flight and then on the ground was blatantly biased and inexcusable.
Simcha Safier was an eyewitness to biased harassment of several chasidishe men by a flight attendant.
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