Kathmandu rabbi clarifies that eviction of local Chabad house wasn’t due to owner’s antisemitism

Rabbi Chezky Lifshitz, head of the Chabad of Nepal in Kathmandu, tells The Times of Israel he never intended to accuse the owner of his building of antisemitism after his organization was evicted last week.

The Chabad House, which hosts thousands of Israeli backpackers every year, was recently told it would have to leave the premises. Numerous sources have informed The Times of Israel that the group had failed to pay rent for several years and owed more than $100,000 in back payments.

However, a post on the Chabad of Nepal Facebook page yesterday seemed to imply that the reason for the eviction was due to the owner’s alleged antisemitism, a message that was repeated in numerous media outlets, including The Times of Israel. Behind the group’s painful experience leading up to the eviction, including being asked to take down signs in Hebrew, “was a clear sense of antisemitism,” the post said.

“People didn’t understand the post,” Lifshitz says. “The owner had asked us to take down signs written in Hebrew because he was worried that the building would be targeted by antisemites. The landlord himself is not anti-Israeli.”

Sources note that the landlord is very supportive of Jews and Israel, and actually has a Jewish brother-in-law. The building, which is famous for hosting more than 2,000 people at what has been called the largest Passover Seder in the world, is located in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Nepal, and the owners missed out on significant income by allowing Chabad to remain there, one source notes.

“Blaming this on antisemitism in Nepal is shameful,” says Rina Lamsal, a former Israeli who has run a travel agency in Nepal for 13 years. “This is the most accepting place in the world.”

Lifshitz says the institution’s extensive belongings have been put in storage, and that he is working hard to find a new hub by the end of February. “That’s when the next tourist season for Israelis starts,” he says.