Simon Wiesenthal Center Issues Travel Advisory on Iceland’s Capital City Reykjavik’s City Council Has Voted to Boycott all Israeli Goods

September 18, 2015

Simon Wiesenthal Center Issues Travel Advisory on Iceland’s Capital City Reykjavik’s City Council Has Voted to Boycott all Israeli Goods
 

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is issuing a travel advisory on Reykjavik, Iceland after its city council voted to boycott all Israeli products.

“Iceland is a major tourist destination, including for many Jews and Israeli tour groups. However, when the elected leaders of its main city pass an extreme anti-Israel and anti-Semitic law, we would caution any member of a Jewish community about traveling there,” declared Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish Human Rights NGO. “The Jewish state alone — not Syria, not Iran, not North Korea, or the Sudan — is being subjected to a dangerous double standard that needs to be denounced by all fair-minded people,” Cooper continued.

Rabbi Cooper also expressed concerns that Reykjavik’s policy could create an environment hostile to Israelis and other Jews. “We urge Reykjavik’s City Council to immediately rescind their racist vote, but if they insist on boycotting all Israeli products, they should immediately remove all Israeli technology from all city computers, cellphones and medical devices."

In 2010, the Wiesenthal Center placed a travel advisory on Malmö, Sweden for the city’s failure to protect its small Jewish community or prosecute anti-Jewish hate crimes. It maintains a travel advisory for Turkey.

For more information, please contact the Center's Public Relations Department, 310-553-9036, join the Center on Facebook, www.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent direct to your Twitter feed.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).