Simon Catling
Around 100 Orthodox Jews from New York City claimed they were barred from boarding a flight while on a religious pilgrimage to Hungary.
The group were travelling to Budapest, the Hungarian capital, from JFK airport and were scheduled to take a connecting flight from Frankfurt in Germany.
However, the party alleged that they were stopped from going onwards with their journey because a few of them had not worn masks on their first-leg flight. Though the large group was flying on the same flights, they were not all associated with one another.
Lufthansa agents reportedly boarded all passengers but the Orthodox Jews and then announced that the Jewish passengers would not be allowed to board.
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According to Jewish news outlet Hamodia, Lufthansa agents told the the Jewish passengers that 'due to operational reasons coming from the flight from New York, for all passengers here we have to cancel you on this flight'.
They claimed that the passengers were not allowed to board the flight because several of them had allegedly not been wearing masks on their preceding flight from JFK. The US no longer requires mask wearing on flights, but Germany still does.
Protesting passengers were then told they were being barred because of the actions of a few individuals.
"They explicitly said that nobody who is dressed alike on that [JFK] plane is going to board the Lufthansa plane to Budapest,"
Nachman Kahana, one of the barred passengers, said.
In video footage obtained from the incident, a male passenger speaks with a female Lufthansa agent and insists he was wearing a mask and that no one in his group had gone without. However, he's told that Jewish people made the problem, and they all needed to 'pay' for the actions of a few of them.
"I'm not with the group," the man then says to the agent. "Is this a Lufthansa decision that all Jewish people can't go on any flight today? Because this is 2022, and this is a western country, so this has to go up to upper management because this is anti-Semitism."
He adds: "This is gruesome, this is gruesome. this is unbelievable."
The agent replies: "It would have been if you were African, or if you were Polander,' before adding: "It was Jewish people who were the mess, who made the problems."
"So Jewish people on the plane made a problem, so all Jews are banned from Lufthansa for the day?" the man asks in response.
In a statement to Hamodia, Lufthansa said: "We find the claim of anti-Semitism unwarranted and without merit.
"We confirm that a larger group of passengers could not be carried today on Lufthansa flight LH1334 from Frankfurt to Budapest, because the travelers refused to wear the legally mandated mask on board."