An Israeli diplomat says an Uber driver in Chicago yelled obscenities at him and threw him out of the vehicle when he answered a phone call in Hebrew.
Itay Milner, Israel's deputy consul general in Chicago, posted on Facebook that it was one of the worst experiences of his life.
It started Thursday night when he was the leaving the consulate's office at the end of the workday and got into an Uber.
Milner recalled that a few minutes went by in silence, as he was checking his emails on his phone, then he got a call from the office.
Milner told local media the enraged driver stopped the car and started yelling, "'Get out of my car!' He was using the F-word, so I didn't really understand what was going on. I asked him, 'Are you sure? We're in the middle of the road?' I thought something was wrong with the car. But he looked back at me with such anger and rage in his eyes and repeated this curse again and again."
On Facebook, he wrote: "I was just thrown out of an Uber in the middle of the highway only because I answered my phone in my mother tongue. Ten 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 [to] start yelling at me 'get the $#@* out of my car!'
"When I asked him if it's because I'm speaking Hebrew he said yes and kept yelling at me to get out. I never thought something like this could happen in America, such awful racism," Milner wrote. "This cannot be tolerated!"
Milner said it became clear to him that he was a victim of anti-Semitism.
"Being trapped in a car with someone that acted very violently – that's dangerous, that's unacceptable," Milner said.
As the Uber pulled away, Milner took a photo. He posted pictures of the vehicle and the driver on social media.
In response, Uber said the driver has been suspended and the company is investigating the incident.
Uber has also offered to refund Milner's payment and stressed that as a policy it does not tolerate discrimination.
"Uber does not tolerate any form of discrimination," the company said in a statement carried by CBS Chicago News. "We are reaching out to the rider to extend our support for the experience he described here. As soon as we were made aware of this, we removed the driver's access from the app as we look further into this."
Milner said one positive outcome of this ugly incident was the outpouring of support that he received. As soon as he posted about it on social media, he says, he received messages offering support – and even offering to give him a ride.
