Last week a disturbing report circulated about a Swiss hotelier, Ruth Thomann, who posted signs asking that her Jewish guests shower prior to using the hotel swimming pool. Thomann suffered substantial backlash over the signs and a boycott of her hotel swiftly followed.
According to a piece in the Jerusalem Post, however, that reaction may have been harsh. After all, Thomann is likely a kind a tolerant person who really doesn't have anything against "the Jews."
The JPost article attempts to present the hotelier's side of the story thusly:
A chuckle tickled my throat as Ruth Thomann, a Swiss hotelier who posted signs urging her “Jewish guests” to shower before entering the pool, assured me that she has “nothing against Jews.”
To be clear, I don’t find racism particularly amusing, especially not these days.
But there was something comical about how her earnest voice – she was speaking in broken English with a thick Swiss-German accent – contrasted with the glaringly discriminatory character of the laminated signs that she posted last week in her Paradise Apartments hotel in Arosa, near Zurich, provoking outrage in Israel and beyond.
Besides, in over a decade of reporting about Europe, I have heard more variations of this weak defense than I can remember — including by people who immediately contradicted themselves. Last year alone I heard it from the professional antisemite Dieudonne M’bala M’bala and from a Belgian cartoonist who proudly accepted an award at Iran’s Holocaust denial and mockery festival.
The article then goes on to suggest that Israel’s Foreign Ministry "escalated" the Thomann's signs "into a diplomatic incident with Switzerland."
"But as I listened earlier this week to Thomann’s passionate explanations and apology," the author apologizes, "I realized that despite the damning evidence and anger against her, she was probably a tolerant person who, for lack of tact, was being pilloried internationally with devastating consequences for her business."
"The signs should have been addressed to all the guests instead of Jewish ones," Thomman told JPost.
And so what began as a clear-cut expression of Europe’s growing antisemitism problem turned, in my mind, into a reminder of how important it is precisely during these times to judge people innocent, even of hate crimes, until proven otherwise.
In addition to the sign about the pool, Thomann also posted one instructing “our Jewish guests” on when they could access a hotel refrigerator. Both signs circulated on social media, where Israeli journalists found them.
“You have to understand,” she pleaded with me, “the sign about the refrigerator goes to Jews because I kindly allowed only the Jews to keep their food in the staff’s refrigerator because I know they bring their own food,” she said. Her Orthodox Jewish guests needed to store their food there because of kosher issues, she explained.
[...] So what about the shower signs, I asked.
“Well,” Thomann paused, searching for words. “I’m sorry to say but I know the hotel, and the only people who go in without taking a shower are the Jewish guests.”
And how exactly does she know that, I inquired, bracing for comments on body odor.
“They go in wearing their T-shirts!” Thomann said, adding that the behavior drew complaints from other guests, who found it unsanitary.
I have not verified the claim about T-shirts. But in my extensive travels across Europe, and especially to places that receive many Jewish visitors, I have seen culture clashes between secular Europeans and vacationing members of insular haredi communities from Israel and beyond.
We'll let our readers be the judge, but we here at TruthRevolt think anti-Semites have enough apologists as it is. The Jerusalem Post, of all outlets, should not be serving as one.
