JERUSALEM — Lufthansa has apologized to an Israeli passenger who reported that a ground crew supervisor in Germany had called him a "dirty Jew."

Yitzhak Barak said that he had been entitled to an upgrade from tourist class to business class, but the check-in clerk refused to allocate the upgrade. Barak said that the clerk referred him to a supervisor who told him that if he was dissatisfied, he could go to El Al, which "deals with your people."

The passenger said that when he complained that the supervisor sounded like an anti-Semite, the supervisor told him he was a "dirty Jew."

The incident came to light last month during a visit by Juergen Weber, president and chief executive officer of the German national airline.