Legal Battle Erupts as New York Hotel Faces Accusations of Anti-Semitism and Holocaust Denial

New York Jewish Week – The Mark, a posh Upper East Side hotel, became embroiled in a legal dispute with a 19-year-old from a wealthy Jewish family who accused the hotel of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.

The hotel says the charges are unfounded — its general manager swore in his deposition that the hotel recognizes the Holocaust as “one of the most horrific events in history” — and recently filed a libel suit against the teenager, Theodore Weintraub.

The Mark is an exclusive five-star establishment, accustomed to hosting high-profile celebrities at the Met Gala, and which rents out its penthouse suite for $75,000 a night. In his complaint, the Mark claims Weintraub began making such accusations after he was refused entry to the hotel two years ago because he presented a fake ID.

Two years after being banned from the hotel in 2021 for repeatedly trying to order drinks at the bar, Weintraub, son of cardiologist and art collector Philip Weintraub, began staging regular protests outside the hotel, according to the complaint.

According to the lawsuit and published articles in the local press, these protests would have intensified in recent months. (The local news site, Patch, was the first to report on the ongoing dispute). Hotel staff accuse Weintraub and another unidentified protester of holding signs proclaiming ‘The Mark denies the Holocaust’, accusing the hotel of spreading disease and paying off at least one other protester to chant similar slogans. He further accused the hotel of supporting Jewish child molester Jeffrey Epstein, who owned a residence a few blocks from the hotel and listed the hotel in his “black book” of contacts.

In July, Weintraub went even further during Jewish rapper and actor Drake’s stay at the facility. Also according to the complaint, Weintraub first tried to prevent hotel staff from preparing for Drake’s arrival, then tried to block Drake’s entrance into the hotel by shouting that the Mark denied the Holocaust, which reportedly sparked a bare-knuckle fight between him and the rapper’s fans. Another incident was also caught on video, where Weintraub or another protester is seen shouting ‘The Mark helped Epstein’ as Drake exits the hotel.

Hotel staff thought they had settled the issue with Weintraub after banishing him from the premises when he was 17, but he returned to the Mark with his father a month later for dinner. The young Weintraub would have first tried to apologize to the staff, before accusing them of anti-Semitism out loud. His father managed to calm him down, but two years later Weintraub resumed his campaign of harassment, the lawsuit says.

In its appeal, the hotel asks that Weintraub be prohibited from entering the establishment and that he be prohibited from publicly claiming that the hotel denies the existence of the Holocaust, that he carries diseases or that he supported Epstein. The accusation of Holocaust denial particularly shocked the hotel’s general manager, Etienne Haro, who wrote in a affidavit that the hotel “is owned by Jews” and that “the idea that we deny the Holocaust is a disingenuous attempt to damage our reputation and our relationships”. (The Mark is owned by Alexico Group, a property development company whose chairman Izak Senbahar is a Jew of Turkish descent).

In the affidavit, Haro said the luxury hotel “acknowledges both the existence of the Holocaust but also the fact that it was one of the most horrific events in history, in which , notably, six million Jews were murdered in an attempted genocide. »

Weintraub lives with his father, and attempts to reach him through his father have been unsuccessful. For his part, Weintraub recently told the New York Post that “the truth will come out”.

After publishing his photo on the front page under the title “SORE BOOZER”, the Post interviewed Weintraub, who told them he was now sober. He said he quit drinking five months before he began his alleged harassment.

He added, “I have nothing against Drake.”

2023-08-13 08:45:15
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