A garage owner in Antwerp published a letter saying that he will no longer provide service to Jews due to “Israel’s unacceptable position on Russia.”
The letter, sent last month to various Jewish organizations, the Israeli embassy in Belgium, and media outlets, stated: “As of today, our Jewish customers are no longer welcome for vehicle maintenance or electrical problems.”
The Forum of Jewish Organizations in Belgium, which said it was shocked by the letter, issued a statement saying: “Belgian Jews don’t have Israeli citizenship and have no influence on Israel’s decisions.”
Over the past week, members of the forum tried to reason with the owner, saying that there’s a fundamental difference between religion and nationality, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself is Jewish but not an Israeli citizen.
Additionally, the accusations against Israel are “fake news” since Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid publicly condemned Russia several times and called the massacre in Bucha a war crime. Furthermore, Israel voted against Russia several times in the UN, including last week’s vote to remove Russia from the Human Rights Council.
The forum added in its response to the owner that Israel offered the most humanitarian assistance per capita of all countries in the world that don’t share a common border with Ukraine, including the field hospital in western Ukraine.
However, the garage owner, obviously motivated by anti-Semitism, refused to revoke his letter and the forum filed a complaint against him to Belgium’s state prosecutor.
Chareidi Belgian MP Michael Freilich told B’Chadrei Chareidim that “discrimination on the grounds of religion and origin is criminal. This is repugant discrimination and based on ‘fake news.’ I hope it will not be without consequences. We cannot tolerate this in society.”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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11 Responses
What about service contracts that may already be in place for car bought there. Do owners have recourse on them? If so, then surely this is illegal or at the very least they would lose their dealership from VW, Audi or Daihatsu, whoever they represent. Anyone know the answer?
I wish this garage owner to merit that this coming Friday סדר night that s/he merit to literally consume his/her “last supper”
He just hates Jews, plain and simple.
The first to call “Judaism” a “religion” was Rome.
Tough to believe that some Belgish guy believes in Israeli politics, takes it seriously. Wonder if states ever fake criminal cases to try to convince the public that like it’s bad to associate Yiddin with the client state in Yisroel. Not like the client state in Yisroel determines its own foreign policy anyway.
HE WAS ANTISEMITIC BEFORE THE WAR IN UKRAINE – THIS WAS JUST AN EXCUSE. HE’S A FOOL, BECAUSE HE WILL BE PROSECUTED FOR RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, AND WILL LOSE BUSINESS/
As the Ukrainians will be flooding our cities and countries, we will see more of this kind of anti-semitism – Hashem Yerachem.
So go to a different mechanic.
If France wasn’t helping Ukraine, would he refuse French people from using his shop? Nope.
Too bad that the Jewish organizations don’t use this opportunity to highlight to the world that the Zionist State is not Jewish and, of course, an imposter anti-Jewish State, and, therefore, Jews have no responsibility for what the Zionists do.
Whether or not a Jew could or could not influence the Zionists is not the point. The point is that the Zionist entity is totally irrelevant to Jews – except for the millions of Jews under Zionist control whom all Jews wish remain safe from both the Zionists and others.
execly like 5tresident said