Thursday, February 06, 2025
Staff Admit Rabbi Was Barred From Kenya Airways For Looking Jewish: ‘It’s Not Good’ – The Airline Now Denies It
A Jewish Rabbi was denied boarding for a Kenya Airways flight from Johannesburg to Nairobi. He's told it's because he appeared visibly Jewish. The rest of his travel party is permitted to travel: "You can travel, he can travel, he can travel."
When asked if it's because of how the rabbi looks? "That's it, it's not good."
Kenya Airways responded this morning on Twitter, saying that "the group was behaving disruptively and appeared to be intoxicated." That is certainly not clear from the video. The airline says that since some members of the group were allowed to travel, it must not have been about their being Jewish. However the staffer suggests it is the visibly Jewish attire that not all were wearing that is the issue.
Last year, Lufthansa was fined $4 million for targeting Jewish passengers. In a 2022 incident, the airline banned Jews off of a New York JFK – Frankfurt flight from continued travel for a 24 hour period, after some passengers on board didn't comply with mask rules and other crewmember instructions. Non-Jews violating mask rules weren't prevented from taking their connections. And the ban included passengers who could be identified as likely Jewish, even if they hadn't broken any rules. The German flag explained at the time 'it's Jews that caused problems, so it's Jews who couldn't travel.'
Hardly an uncommon viewpoint! A year ago British Airways removed a Jewish sitcom from its inflight entertainment because it was Jewish, saying they didn't wish to take sides between Israel and Hamas, even though the sitcom had nothing to do with conflict (it simply had Jewish characters set in Israel).
I reached out to Kenya Airways for comment on Wednesday and will update if they respond. They did not respond to my inquiry, which came within minutes of the original video being shared. However I've added their public response to the post.
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