Israel asks Swiss government to condemn Paradies hotel after notices on swimming pool and kitchen use are put on Facebook

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Israel has lodged official complaints after a hotel in Switzerland posted signs telling Jewish guests to shower before using the pool and restricted their access to a kitchen freezer.



The Paradies apartment hotel in the Alpine village of Arosa, in eastern Switzerland, has been accused of antisemitism after a guest posted to Facebook a picture of a notice near the hotel pool.

“To our Jewish guests, women, men and children, please take a shower before you go swimming,” it said, adding: “If you break the rules I’m forced to [close] the swimming pool for you.”

A second notice, in the kitchen, instructed “our Jewish guests” that they could only access the facility’s freezer between 10 and 11am and between 4.30 and 5.30pm. “I hope you understand that our team does not like being disturbed all the time,” it said.

The story was published by Israeli papers, prompting a harsh reaction from Israeli officials.

Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Tzipi Hotovely, described the notices as “an antisemitic act of the worst and ugliest kind”.

Jacob Keidar, Israel’s ambassador to Switzerland, reportedly contacted the hotel and later informed Hotovely that the signs had been removed.

But she was not satisfied and has reportedly demanded formal condemnation from the Swiss government.

A Swiss foreign ministry spokesman said in an email that the ministry had been in contact with Keidar and had “outlined to him that Switzerland condemns racism, antisemitism and discrimination in any form”.

The Paradies manager, Ruth Thomann, who signed the notices, insisted to the Swiss newspaper 20Minutes that she was not antisemitic, and acknowledged that her “choice of words was a mistake”.

She told the Blick newspaper that the apartment hotel currently had a lot of Jewish clients, and that other guests had complained that some of them did not shower before using the pool and had asked her to do something.

“I wrote something naive on that poster,” she was quoted as saying, admitting that it would have been better simply to address all guests with the same message.

The hotel is reportedly very popular with ultra-orthodox Jewish guests because it has been accommodating to their needs, including providing access to a freezer to store kosher food.

Thomann told Blick that because the freezer was in a staff room, she had felt compelled to set times when the Jewish guests could access it to ensure staff could enjoy their “lunch and dinner in peace”.

On Tuesday the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which confronts anti-Semitism and promotes human rights, published a letter asking Switzerland to “close [the] hotel of hate and penalise its management”.

It called on Booking.com to remove the hotel from its directory “and explain the antisemitic cause of the removal on your website”.

A Booking.com spokeswoman said: “We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind. We can confirm that the property in question is no longer available on Booking.com.”



