Growing number of complaints about behavior of Jewish tourists in Davos flood Swiss media with antisemitic allegations alarming the local Jewish community.
For many years, Davos has become a popular destination for thousands of Orthodox Jewish tourists.
Reto Branschi, director of the Davos tourism office, strongly criticized the alleged behavior of Jewish visitors in interviews he gave to local media outlets.
“Some of these visitor groups find it very difficult to respect local laws and the common ways of life here,” he said in one of the interviews.
The increasing local outrage against Jewish tourists is deeply troubling for the Swiss Jewish community, especially for Jonathan Kreutner, the Secretary General of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities.
For years, Kreutner has led a project in Davos designed to cultivate positive relations and address behavioral and cultural gaps between tourists and residents. However, Davos authorities have decided to halt their collaboration with him due to the growing number of complaints.
“In my view, the situation in Davos is very uncomfortable. Taking the inappropriate behavior of a few individuals and generalizing it to many is simply racist, and they are doing this only in the case of Jews, which makes it antisemitic,” said Kreutner.
“We don’t understand why the Davos tourism office has decided to cut ties with us. This will only exacerbate the situation. It seems that Davos has decided they simply no longer want Jewish tourists. They’ve made crude generalizations about all Jews based on the behavior of a few.”
