Berlin Airport Security Asks Chabad Rabbi to Remove Yarmulke

Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, who leads Chabad in Berlin, was recently asked to remove his yarmulke while going through security at Berlin Brandenburg Airport in Germany.

The rabbi, who insisted that there was no such security policy in place, subsequently met with the chief of the German federal police. The latter confirmed that Jewish travelers do not need to uncover their heads during check-in.

“‘While there’s no doubt that safety guidelines need to be followed, the directive to remove the kipah—a Jewish symbol that never leaves our heads—was never approved and holds no validity,” said the rabbi, who has run the Jewish center since the mid-1990s.

In May 2022, Germany’s leading airline Lufthansa apologized for keeping more than 100 identifiably Jewish people from flying from the city of Frankfurt to Hungary. Later that year, the airline adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.