An Israeli diplomat was verbally assaulted by an Uber driver in Chicago and thrown out of the car after he answered a phone call in Hebrew.
By: United with Israel Staff
An Uber driver in Chicago yelled at an Israeli diplomat and threw him out of the car in the middle of the highway when he answered a phone call in Hebrew.
Itay Milner, deputy consul general of Israel to the Midwest, wrote in a Facebook post on Thursday that he “just had one of the worst experience[s] in my life.”
Milner recounted how “10 minutes into my ride and with no prior interaction between the driver and myself, it took only two words in Hebrew to get my driver start yelling at me get ‘the $#@* out of my car.'”
“It did not help when I told him that I can’t go out in the middle of the highway. It was like I wasn’t a person for him anymore. When I asked him if it’s because I’m speaking Hebrew he said yes and kept yelling at me to get out,” Milner wrote.
“I am not easily intimidated, but that scared me, and I ran out of there, walking in the middle of the road,” he added.
“I never thought something like this could happen in America, such awful racism. “This cannot be tolerated!” he concluded.
The driver was identified only as “Yuva.”
An Uber spokeswoman said Friday that the company removed the driver’s access to the app — meaning he could no longer pick up riders or otherwise drive for the company — as soon as it was made aware of the allegations and that Uber will not tolerate “any form of discrimination.”
The Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Midwest branch tweeted that “this hate has no place in our community. We’re glad that Uber has suspended the individual pending an investigation and hope that they arrive at the appropriate conclusion.”
Milner later wrote, “I want to do everything I can to make sure nothing like this happens ever again, and I’m doing so with the media, the police and all of you.”