30 August 2007
The Australian airline Quantas has announced that it will launch an inquiry into an alleged anti-Semitic incident witnessed by a Jewish passenger, the AJN news service reports. Daniel Moses was flying first class from Singapore to Sydney earlier this month when a flight attendant made a number of anti-Jewish remarks. He lodged a series of complaints with the airline soon after and after two weeks of inaction, Quantas said it would investigate the in-flight incident and the poor response Moses initially received from the airline. Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon also telephoned Moses to personally apologize for the incident.
Moses was on his way back home from the Maldives when he overheard a flight attendant speaking to a female passenger. After settling the woman’s issue, the flight attendant allegedly turned to Moses and said, “Jews”. When Moses, a businessman from Sydney, asked her what she meant, she replied, “That’s what you get when you deal with Jews.” Even after Moses revealed that he himself was Jewish, the flight attendant continued her slur. “Well, you better go and tell her [the other passanger] that she is letting your team down,” before adding that South African Jews were the “worst”. In his complaint, Moses wrote, “In 35 years, I have never been subjected to such racist comments, and not only of an anti-Semitic nature. I mean about any race or religion.”