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German airport staff ask rabbi to remove kippah, against official policy
Chabad Rabbi Yehudah Teichtal was asked to remove his skullcap by staff at Brandenburg airport
August 25, 2023 09:54
Chabad Rabbi Yehudah Teichtal was asked to remove his skullcap by staff at Brandenburg airport
August 25, 2023 09:54(JNS) A leading Chabad rabbi based in Germany has complained to federal authorities after he was asked to remove his kippah while going through airport security
Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, who leads Chabad in Berlin, was recently asked to remove his kippah by staff at Berlin's Brandenburg airport.
The rabbi, who insisted that there was no such security policy in place, refused to remove his kippah.
On his return to Berlin, Rabbi Teichtal met with the chief of the German federal police, Dr Dieter Romann. Romann confirmed that Jewish travelers do not need to uncover their heads during check-in.
According to VIN news, Rabbi Teichtal said: “The police chief issued a directive to all federal officers in the country to cease this procedure, which was never official,”
“Moreover, the president of the police confirmed this officially and also approved its publication.”
“‘While there’s no doubt that safety guidelines need to be followed, the directive to remove the kipah—a Jewish symbol that never leaves our heads—was never approved and holds no validity,” said the rabbi, who has run the Jewish center since the mid-1990s.
In May 2022, Germany’s national airline Lufthansa apologized for keeping more than 100 identifiably Jewish people from flying from the city of Frankfurt to Hungary. Later that year, the airline adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.