Owners of holiday villa in eastern France demanded rabbi condemn Israel, then cancelled his family’s reservation after he refused to comply.By World Israel News StaffA British rabbi said his family’s summer holiday rental in France was canceled after the property owners discovered he was Jewish and asked him to state whether he condemned Israel’s military actions in Gaza, Judea, Samaria, and Lebanon.Rabbi Dr. Yoni Birnbaum, senior rabbi of Finchley United Synagogue in London, said he booked a rental home in eastern France at the beginning of May for a family holiday. The booking was accepted and he paid a 50 percent deposit, using a personal email address that included the word “rabbi.”According to Birnbaum, the correspondence had been routine until nearly a month later, when the owners wrote to him after looking him up online.“We hesitated for some time whether to present or not the following to you, as it concerns a very sensitive and painful matter,” the owners wrote, according to an account Birnbaum published in the Jewish Chronicle.“We are always curious about who our guests are. In your case, our curiosity was piqued by your email address, from which we gather that you are a rabbi, and we quickly found some more information on the internet,” they continued.The owners then asked Birnbaum to confirm whether he was part of “a progressive, liberal Jewish movement” that condemned “the violent actions of the Israeli army, on orders from the Israeli government, in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and recently in Lebanon.”“We are against every form of terrorism, such as that of Hamas and Hezbollah, and also believe that every country and people has the right to defend themselves, whether Israeli, Palestinian, or Lebanese, regardless of their faith or beliefs,” the owners wrote.They added that they “completely disagree with the violent and, in our view, inhumane and criminal actions of the Israeli army” and considered the boarding of ships and imprisonment of their compatriots in international waters “highly reprehensible and unacceptable.”“We would like to hear whether you belong to the ones who likewise disapprove of this and speak out against it, and whether you are opposed to the violent and criminal actions of the Israeli government and army,” they wrote.“If that is not the case, we are unfortunately unable to offer you accommodation, as this conflicts too strongly with our principles. In that case, we will have to cancel the reservation and, of course, refund the deposit.”Birnbaum said the demand amounted to a political test applied to him because he was Jewish.“At no stage in our correspondence to date did I ever mention my Jewish faith. It wasn’t relevant. We are simply a British family like any other, seeking to rent a property from you for a summer holiday in France,” he wrote in response.“But noticing that my email address contained the word ‘Rabbi’, you decided that it would be appropriate to interrogate my political position and affiliation. On the basis of my response, you will now decide whether to reject our confirmed booking for the summer.”“In other words, you wished to subject me to a purity test. Am I one of the ‘good Jews’ or one of the ‘bad Jews’? Because while some Jews might be welcome at your property, others will be turned away,” he wrote.Birnbaum also challenged the owners’ assertion that they would ask the same question of guests from Lebanon, Gaza or Iran, noting that he was British.“But I am from the United Kingdom. My grandfather fought in the British Army in World War Two, risking his life countless times so that you and your compatriots could build the so-called ‘liberal, progressive’ society which you say you value so highly,” he wrote. “Would you insist on a similar purity test from a British citizen who had some reference to their Muslim faith or their Persian heritage in their email address?”He asked the owners to cancel the booking and refund the deposit, saying his family no longer wished to stay at the property.According to Birnbaum, the owners did not apologize.Instead, they said they had not discriminated on the basis of “origin, religion, skin colour, etc,” and argued that they had asked for his position “as an individual, not as a Jew, not because you are Jewish.”They also said they had “family and friends in both Muslim and Jewish circles,” and added: “However, we refuse to provide shelter to anyone who expresses or supports racist or fascist behaviour.”Birnbaum rejected that explanation, saying the exchange would not have happened had his email address not identified him as a rabbi.“They claimed they were not judging me because I was Jewish. Yet had my email address not contained the word ‘rabbi’, this exchange would never have happened,” he wrote.The incident comes amid heightened concern over antisemitism in Europe since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.France has recorded elevated levels of antisemitic incidents in recent years.Reuters reported in February that France recorded 1,320 antisemitic acts in 2025, more than half of all anti-religious incidents recorded by the Interior Ministry that year, despite a decline from 2024.French President Emmanuel Macron said at the time that antisemitism remained a serious threat and called for stronger action against anti-Jewish hatred.In Britain, the Community Security Trust recorded 3,700 antisemitic incidents in 2025, the second-highest annual total it has ever reported and a 4 percent rise from 2024.French public guidance on housing discrimination states that landlords may choose among prospective tenants, but may not reject an applicant on discriminatory grounds such as origin, sex, age or other protected characteristics.Birnbaum said the episode showed how Jews can be required to justify or distance themselves from Israel before being accepted in ordinary settings.“A society has crossed a dangerous line when a Jew cannot simply be a customer, a neighbour, a colleague, a student or a holidaymaker,” he wrote. “The moment a Jew is first required to explain, justify or distance themself before being accepted, equality has already been abandoned.”The post Rabbi’s family barred from French holiday villa for refusing to condemn Israel appeared first on World Israel News.