German man jailed for Holocaust comment about Jewish singer who claimed antisemitism

‘In Buchenwald he would have liked to be seen with his Star of David,’ man writes about German-Israeli singer Gil Ofarim, who is accused of lying about an antisemitic incident

By PHILISSA CRAMER 27 July 2022, 12:23 pm

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Gil Ofarim arrives at an event at the Hotel de Rome in Berlin, August 19, 2021. (Gerald Matzka/picture alliance via Getty Images)

JTA — A German man has been sentenced to seven months in prison for leaving a hateful comment on a Facebook post about the case of Gil Ofarim, a German-Israeli singer who was charged with lying about an antisemitism incident at a hotel last year.

“In Buchenwald he would have liked to be seen with his Star of David,” the 38-year-old man from the German city of Niesky wrote on the account of TAG24, a German news website, according to a report by Radio Lausitz, a German news radio channel.

Buchenwald is the site of the largest Nazi concentration camp within Germany’s borders. The comment ran afoul of Germany’s strict laws prohibiting antisemitic speech, and the man’s previous criminal record also played a role in his sentencing, according to the report, which said an appeal was likely.

Pop singer Ofarim said a clerk had denied him a room at a Leipzig hotel because he was wearing a Star of David necklace.

Hundreds protested the hotel before Ofarim’s account was discredited when security video showed that he was not wearing a visible Jewish symbol at the time.