Berlin hotel denies anti-Israel claim by ‘Shoah’ director

A five-star hotel in Berlin is dismissing claims of anti-Israel bias by French Jewish filmmaker Claude Lanzmann.

The director of the Holocaust documentary “Shoah” is quoted in a German newspaper as claiming that the Hotel Bristol intentionally left Israel off a list of international dialing codes.

Lanzmann tells Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that a hotel employee informed him the omission was requested by Arab guests.

But hotel director Birgitt Ullerich denies there were any such instructions, telling the AP that only 34 countries are on the list and Israel’s absence is “simply an oversight.”

The hotel is part of the Kempinski group, which has its roots in a restaurant founded by German Jewish businessman Berthold Kempinski.

Berlin interior minister Frank Henkel is urging the hotel to investigate Lanzmann’s allegation.

— AP