A kosher hotel in Davos, Switzerland, received death threats and antisemitic insults in a letter, Jonathan Kreutner, the secretary-general of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG), told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
The incident actually took place at the end of July; however, news of it was only made public this weekend.
Aside from death threats and claims of “we will come and kill you all,” the letter also contained references to the Holocaust and Nazism, Kreutner added.
“A death threat is not a verbal slur. It has a completely different nature and, above all, a completely different effect on the people concerned,” he said. “This used to be unknown in Switzerland,” Kreutner continued.
Davos antisemitism on the rise
Davos, a resort town in the Alps, has seen a huge surge in antisemitic incidents over the last two years. Swastikas and antisemitic graffiti were sprayed recently across the town, including next to the hotel. Then, in July, two Jewish couples visiting the resort were spat on, insulted, pushed, and verbally threatened.
A month later, in August, a 24-year-old Algerian asylum seeker punched a 19-year-old Jewish tourist several times in the face as he was walking on the Promenade in Davos. The attacker was sentenced to six months in jail.
Kreutner noted that of the multiple incidents in Switzerland, the majority are related to the Middle East and are not connected to the local Jewish population. “It is not so much classic antisemitism,” he said. “In 2024, we noticed that almost half of the antisemitic incidents had a direct link with the situation in Gaza; this year, we will be at a similar level.”
The letter was handed to the cantonal police.
