Leipzig Story

 This story popped up in the past day or two....revolving around a musician/singer....Gil Ofarim.  Best source is MDR (public TV from eastern region of Germany).

Gil, for the sake of the story, is Jewish.

So over the weekend, Gil arrives for a concert in the city of Leipzig.

What I'll generally say about Leipzig (city of 605,000 folks)....has a four-star university...and probably has an equal amount of far left-wing and far right-wing folks.  If you were looking for left or right trouble....on a Saturday night....you probably wouldn't have to go far.  

Gil arrives and checks into the hotel.  The person at the desk?  They note this 'Star of David' that Gil is wearing and then offers the advice 'you ought not wear it in public'.  That's all that the desk person said.

Now, a normal guy would stand there and take this in one of two ways....either the desk person was looking out for your safety, or they were anti-Jew.  

Gil was shaken in some way by the advice....walked out of the hotel, and made a video (clearly shaken by the advice).  He felt it was anti-Jew chatter by the desk person of the hotel.

So in the past 24 hours....this video has gone out and gotten a lot of attention.  Everybody backs up Gil, and harps on the wrongness of advising to remove the Star of David.

I've traveled a lot around Europe and to the four corners of the Earth.  I typically talk to the front-door guy/front-desk guy....getting a map of places to avoid in town.  In my mind, the desk person did what you'd expect, and Gil didn't grasp that Leipzig is one of those places where you might want to pay attention to people and things going on.

Trying to suggest that Leipzig is purely safe and not anti-Jew?  I'm sorry, but you might run into various characters.  I'd say the safety of hanging around the Frankfurt train station....would also be questionable.  Same for several blocks in Hamburg.  Same for various parts of Koln or Berlin.