A British rabbi says his family’s summer holiday rental in France was canceled after the property owners asked him to condemn Israel before allowing the stay to go ahead.

Rabbi Dr. Yoni Birnbaum, senior rabbi of Finchley United Synagogue in London, booked the rental home in eastern France at the beginning of May for an August family vacation. The booking was accepted, and he paid a 50% deposit. Nearly a month later, the owners contacted him after noticing the word “rabbi” in his email address and looking him up online.

The owners asked him to confirm that he belonged to “a progressive and 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.” They wrote that if this was not the case, they could not offer accommodation because it conflicted with their principles.

Birnbaum rejected the demand, saying his Jewish identity had never been relevant to the booking. “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 other words, you wished to subject me to a purity test. Am I one of the ‘good Jews’ or one of the ‘bad Jews’?” he added.

The owners denied discriminating against him as a Jew, saying they asked about his views “as an individual, not as a Jew, not because you are Jewish.”