Uber investigating after driver reportedly kicked Jewish camper, staff out of vehicle in U.K.

An Uber driver in the United Kingdom reportedly kicked out a Jewish camper and staff member in the middle of the night after initiating a conversation about Israel and Judaism.

The incident occurred last month, on Dec. 26 around 3:10 a.m., on Ashbourne Rd. in Cheadle, a village just south of Manchester, Staffordshire Police told National Post in an emailed statement. Authorities said they were notified about it by a third party.

The driver “became aggressive with a passenger, a man, and asked the man and a child to get out of a taxi following a conversation about religion,” police said. “Enquiries are ongoing.”

The Jewish Chronicle identified the passengers of the vehicle as a camper and staff member from Bnei Akiva, an Orthodox Jewish organization dedicated to providing programs for Jewish youth. In a letter shared with the publication, the camp told parents that the driver had initiated a conversation about Judaism and Israel, and “after some time” asked the passengers to “leave the vehicle and left them on the side of the road.”

“They were able to return safely shortly afterwards with support from Bnei Akiva staff,” the letter said.

Uber has faced some criticism from the Jewish community in Canada for incidents involving Canadian Jews within the country and abroad. A Canadian-Slovakian model told National Post she was kicked out of an Uber in November because the driver said she did “not drive Jewish people.” In February, a Jewish couple said an Uber driver refused to take them home from the airport after he heard them speaking Hebrew. A Canadian-Israeli couple was travelling in the Netherlands in August when they said an Uber driver wouldn’t drive them after they said they were from Israel.

Speaking to National Post in December, Uber said it was dedicated to working with the Canadian Jewish community and that the company was “in listening mode.”

Regarding the incident in Cheadle, Uber did not immediately respond to National Post’s request for comment. It told the Jewish Chronicle that the incident described is “unacceptable” and the company’s specialist team is “urgently investigating this matter.”

In the letter, the camp said it was working closely with its security provider, Community Security Trust (CST), and police “to review what happened and to implement additional security measures and procedures” for the rest of the winter holiday camp. On its website, it says the camp ran from Dec. 21 to Dec. 28.

“The safety and wellbeing of our participants remains our highest priority, and we are treating this matter with the utmost seriousness,” the letter said.

Bnei Akiva did not immediately respond to National Post’s request for comment.

A CST spokesperson called the incident “disgraceful,” in a statement to National Post, saying that “a child who had been taken to hospital was thrown out of an Uber on their way back to camp in circumstances that strongly suggest antisemitism was the reason.”

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