From a hotel in Kyoto to a sandwich joint in Edinburgh, the world is becoming hostile toward Israelis who are learning that a vacation won’t shield them from the Gaza war.
During the nine months of war the Israeli tourist experience abroad has been marked by fears of antisemitism and efforts to avoid pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
According to reports by Israeli media and posts online, some of those worries have recently turned real for a number of Israeli tourists.Anecdotal incidents at touristic locations around the world are making it clear that even though there is no official policy of excluding Israelis, that is sometimes the situation on the ground.
An especially bumpy week began on June 17 at the Material Hotel in Kyoto, Japan, when an Israeli named Alex was informed that his reservation had been canceled due to the allegations of Israeli war crimes in Gaza. The Material told Alex that it was “not able to accept reservations from persons we believe might have ties to the Israeli army,” as reported by Israeli website Ynet.
The story made the rounds on social media, produced a stern protest letter from Israel’s ambassador in Tokyo, and led to a rebuke by the Kyoto municipality that the hotel had breached Japanese business law and must ensure that such a transgression won’t happen again.
The Star of David is not a Jewish holy symbol, having that would be sacrilege anyway, similar to idolatry. It’s not even the Star of David, to be honest.
At some point Jewish secularists in Europe wanted some symbol for the Jewish identity. They picked one very commonly used in the Middle East, by all peoples and religions.
By the way, crescent is not a Muslim holy symbol, too, and with the same implication of idolatry. Though they have in practice accepted it, just like Jews. It’s the symbol of Constantinople, which Ottomans used in line with their pretense to be heirs of Rome (I mean, if Germans can do that, why not them).
Many of the Jews around the world have a very idealized idea of Israel and simply can’t believe it’s bad. See, when you are a member of a demonized (even today) minority, but somewhere is a strong and successful state of your nation that has restored its presence in its cradle 2000 years after being partially wiped out, partially expelled from there, you tend to be irrational.
Also separation of religion and nation is a Western thing, Jewish religion is about a nation, and, by the way, Muslim religion too states that all Muslims are one nation.
EDIT: OK, why the downvotes here? Everything here is factual. And if that’s the paragraph about 2000 years triggering people - that’s a right, yes. The state of Israel sucks, but not the general idea. Same as Sebastia, Malatia, Sis, Sasun, Mush, Van are Armenian till the end of days in my book.
At least the Germans had the Holy Roman Empire. The Ottomans knocked over the Byzantines who actually were the old Eastern Roman Empire. The Ottomans had about as much claim to one of the crowns of Rome as the Netherlands has to the HRE crown.
They took over the Roman Empire. They had a pretty good claim.
Nah it but the time they knocked off Constantinople the Roman Empire was gone. Heck even the later Byzantines got side eye for claiming it.
No, they didn’t get any side eyes. Only maybe from western Europeans who considered themselves that. Even calling them Byzantines is anachronistic, they were called Romans.
Greeks literally mainly called themselves Romans since then till Kingdom of Greece became a thing, and they kinda still do.
Interesting. I never knew that. I still don’t think the Ottomans get to be the Romans any more than modern Italy or Germany but I’ll concede they conquered people who considered themselves Roman still.
Being Armenian, I don’t think they in any way get to be Roman, even less than Russians, but it’s a fact that they called themselves that officially.
Italy speaks Romance languages, except for the parts of its population which speak Greek and Albanian, so of course. And both Italy and Germany are (historically during formation of those nations) Christian.