The Pischa mountain hotel in Davos, Switzerland, has announced that it will no longer rent ski and snow sports equipment to Jewish guests, due to an alleged long history of unruly behavior and theft.
The announcement notice appeared over the weekend on the door of the hotel's ski storage room, revealing a message "in Hebrew" that explicitly barred Jewish guests from accessing the service.
"Due to various unfortunate incidents, including a sled theft, we no longer rent sports equipment to our Jewish brothers. This applies to all equipment such as skis, windboards, ski lifts and snowshoes. Thank you for your understanding," the notice said.
The local police confirmed to Daily 20 Minuten that they had begun an official investigation into this case, on charges of "discrimination and incitement to hatred."
The Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG) also strongly condemned the hotel notice, calling the new policy a "new level of audacity" and vowing to file a private complaint on the issue.
“A whole group of guests are being denigrated en masse on the basis of their appearance and origin,” Jonathan Kreutner, general secretary of the SIG, said in a statement.
However, the hotel management stood by its decision, explaining that it was a result of unruly behavior exhibited by Orthodox Jews for a long time at the resort.
“We no longer want the daily hassles and therefore exercise our right to decide who can rent our property and who cannot,” her statement read, while insisting that the move “has nothing to do with religion, skin color or personal preferences” of guests.
The statement explained that these guests routinely distribute the equipment over the mountain slope instead of returning it, taking it from the storage room without permission.
The regional tourism company Sportbahnen Pischa AG was quick to distance itself from the incident, explaining that the hotel was rented externally in the mountain and the organization had nothing to do with its management.
Parent company Davos Klosters took a similar stance, with its CEO, Reto Branchi, saying: “The notice could hurt the feelings of the Jewish guest group as a whole, and this should not be the case.”
At the same time, he admitted that Orthodox Jews had shown unruly behavior for many years and faced many problems at local resorts, and these "difficulties" with a "small group" were real.
Poland's Defense Minister hints at the possibility of increasing the number of the army through "active reserve mobilization"
Poland's Defense Minister, Wladyslaw Kuciniak-Kamisz, announced that the number of Polish Armed Forces will reach approximately 220,000 soldiers and officers by the end of the current year 2024, indicating that the size of the army will increase with each year.
Kamisz said in an interview with the Polsat TV channel: “By the end of this year, the number of Polish army soldiers may reach about 220,000.”
The Minister of Defense pointed out that the Polish Army has “significant scope to increase (the size of the army) in the active reserve mobilization format.”
The Polish Ministry of Defense stated that by October 2023, the strength of the Polish Armed Forces reached approximately 187,000 soldiers and officers.
Former Minister Mariusz Blaszczak considered it necessary to increase the number of Polish army personnel to 300 thousand people.
A few days ago, Kamysh announced that 40,000 Ukrainian military personnel were receiving training on Polish territory.
He added before the Polish Parliament, " Military assistance to Ukraine and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine is considered an enhancement of Poland's security and an investment in our security, and we will do this through training as well."
He continued: "So far, 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been trained, and 30% of the training is carried out within the framework of international missions."