AIRBNB MUST CONFRONT ANTISEMITISM AMONG ITS ICELANDIC HOSTS

By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

To Americans, Jews, those who hate bigots, and all who love Israel: exercise caution when booking an Airbnb in Iceland.

I do not say this lightly, and I certainly do not accuse all Icelanders—or even most Icelandic Airbnb hosts—of antisemitism. But after the abuse my family and I experienced during our visit, witnessed and condemned by tens of millions the world over, Jewish travelers have every reason to ask whether a prospective host regards them as welcome guests or as legitimate targets because they are Jewish, Zionist, or Israeli.

After I was repeatedly confronted, threatened, harassed, and even assaulted in the streets of Iceland, an Airbnb host named Katla sent my wife a message declaring that I had “put a target on himself” and that the harassment I experienced was “self-inflicted and trivial.”

Think about those words.

A visibly Jewish man is confronted in public, yet the person offering lodging through a global hospitality platform says the victim brought it upon himself. As a Jew, he is a legitimate target. What a vile woman. This is the ancient vocabulary of Jew-hatred: If Jews are threatened, they provoked it. If Jews are assaulted, they deserved it. If Jews protest, they are exaggerating. If Jews defend themselves, they become the real villains. Katla is a poisonous antisemite.

“When a host tells a Jewish guest that public harassment was ‘self-inflicted,’ hospitality has been replaced by ideological intimidation.”

The host further described my wife and me as “Zionist extremists” and claimed that we were attempting to convince the world that there is no distinction between Zionism and Judaism.

But Zionism is not some foreign infection grafted onto Jewish identity. It is the Jewish people’s 3,000-year connection to our ancestral homeland and our determination, after centuries of exile, persecution, pogroms, and genocide, never again to live entirely at the mercy of others.

Criticism of an Israeli government is not automatically antisemitic. Israelis themselves criticize their government every day. Try doing that in any Arab or Islamic country in any place on earth.  But when someone excuses harassment of a Jew by claiming he “put a target on himself,” vilifies his wife as a “Zionist extremist,” and treats Jewish self-determination as a moral disease, we are no longer discussing a good-faith disagreement over policy.

We are confronting the demonization of Jews wearing the mask of anti-Zionism.

The message to my wife alleged that I had cheered “the torture, mutilation, starvation and killing” of Palestinian children. That is a grotesque falsehood. Indeed, I personally worked with American HHS Secretary, my close friend Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, to save hundreds of sick Palestinian children who needed urgent medical care and were taken to Amman, Jordan (Israeli hospitals were glad to accept them, but the Hamas terrorists refused. Besides, if they were treated in Israel by Jewish doctors, their families would be killed in Gaza by Hamas as collaborators). My heart bleeds for the suffering of innocent Palestinians in Gaza brought upon them by the barbarity of Hamas. Judaism commands us to recognize the image of God in every human being. Every innocent child killed in war is a tragedy.

But compassion for Palestinian civilians does not require erasing October 7, when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, murdered approximately 1,200 people, kidnapped hundreds, and committed acts of rape, torture, and mutilation. Nor does concern for Gaza require denying Israel the right to defend its citizens against an organization openly committed to its destruction. And nor does it ever excuse Hamas from using those Palestinian children as human shields as the cowardly terrorist hide behind babies, using them as bulletproof vests.

The host’s language did not engage those arguments. Instead, it transformed disagreement into personal degradation and then used that degradation to justify public harassment.

“The oldest prejudice in Europe has learned a new vocabulary: Jews are no longer condemned simply as Jews, but as ‘Zionists’ who supposedly deserve whatever happens to them.”

This conduct appears fundamentally incompatible with Airbnb’s own standards. The company’s nondiscrimination policy requires users to treat others respectfully regardless of religion, ethnicity, or national origin. Airbnb also prohibits demeaning or insulting language rooted in protected characteristics and bars hosts from discriminating against guests because of nationality or ethnic background.

Airbnb must therefore investigate Katla in Reykjavik who advertises two properties. It must determine whether hosts who direct ideological abuse at Jewish or Zionist guests should remain on a platform built on trust, safety, and hospitality.

This is larger than one unpleasant exchange. A Jewish traveler should not have to interrogate a host’s politics before determining whether his family will be safe in the host’s property. An Israeli should not have to conceal his nationality. A Jew should not have to remove a kippah, hide a Star of David, or renounce Zionism to receive ordinary human courtesy. American Jewish tourists avoid not have to fear for their lives from Icelandic hosts who literally call them legitimate targets.

Icelanders should understand another historical truth. Their country is the only NATO member without its own armed forces. Britain occupied Iceland in 1940 to prevent Nazi Germany from gaining control of this strategically vital island, and American forces assumed its defense in 1941. During the Cold War, Iceland relied heavily on the United States and NATO; American forces were stationed at Keflavík for decades, and the bilateral US-Iceland defense relationship continues.

These facts do not give Americans the right to lecture every Icelander. They do, however, expose the ingratitude of people who vilify Americans and Jews while enjoying freedoms preserved by an alliance in which American taxpayers and soldiers have carried an immense burden.

Freedom of speech includes the right to criticize Israel. It does not mean freedom from moral judgment, public exposure, or the rules of a private hospitality platform. A host may hold political opinions. A host may not weaponize access to accommodation to demean guests because they are Jews, Israelis, or supporters of the Jewish state.

“Jewish and American travelers are not asking Airbnb for political agreement. We are demanding physical safety, equal treatment, and basic human dignity.”

The age of the submissive Jew is over. We will not quietly absorb abuse to make antisemites more comfortable. We will document it, report it, publish it, and demand accountability from the corporations that provide bigots with commercial platforms.

But Judaism also forbids us from becoming consumed by hatred. Even as we expose those whose hearts have been poisoned by antisemitism, we pray that they will change. Hatred is a cancer, antisemitism a disease: It begins by dehumanizing its chosen victim, but ultimately metastasizes throughout the character of the person who harbors it.

So, to the host who wrote these words: I reject your accusations and your attempt to excuse the harassment and possible extreme violence against any American Jew. I will not be intimidated, and neither will my family. But I still pray that God cures you of this hatred and restores your capacity to see Jews not as political symbols, but as human beings.

And to Airbnb: Jewish travelers are waiting. Will you enforce your own principles, or will antisemitic hosts be permitted to make your platform another place where Jews must wonder whether they are safe?

And finally, to Katla, the bigoted, racist, antisemitic Icelandic host in Reykjavik. You have two empty properties you use for profit. Why not donate their use for just one year – free of charge – to Palestinian or Arab refugees from the Syrian Civil war, the Sudan, or indeed from Gaza.

Yes, I know the answer. When hell freezes over. Right? And why? Because your “caring” for Palestinians extends no further than the vilification of Jews. You’re an embarrassment to Iceland and you’re serious a legal problem to AirBnB. Worst of all, you’re a disgrace to humanity. Time to repent.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is the international bestselling author of thirty-eight books, translated into more than twenty languages. He has been hailed as “the most famous rabbi in America” (The Washington Post, Newsweek), “arguably the most famous Orthodox Jew on earth” (The New York Observer), and named one of the fifty most influential Jews in the world (The Jerusalem Post).

A fearless public intellectual and one of Israel and Jewry’s most eloquent defenders, Rabbi Boteach has appeared on virtually every major television network and media platform across the globe—from the United States to Europe to Asia to Australia—bringing his unapologetic voice to hundreds of millions.

His groundbreaking 1999 classic Kosher Sex transformed the global conversation on intimacy, teaching that passion and sanctity must be orchestrated into an indivisible whole. It remains one of the most influential works on relationships and sexuality published in modern times.

Oprah Winfrey anointed Rabbi Shmuley as her sexuality and marital relationship expert and gave him his own daily show alongside Maya Angelou, Gayle King, and Dr. Oz.

For eleven years, he served as Rabbi at Oxford University, where he founded the L’Chaim Society and built it into one of the largest student organizations in the university’s history, mentoring future leaders and shaping a generation of thinkers.

Rabbi Boteach is the only rabbi ever to receive the London Times Preacher of the Year Award, and remains the competition’s record-holder.

He lives in New Jersey with his Australian wife, Debbie, and together they have, thank God, nine children and twelve grandchildren.

Follow him on Instagram and X @RabbiShmuley.