Uber drops Michigan driver accused of anti-Semitism
After being filmed shouting profanity-laced tirade at cabbie, Jewish student says he was refused service because of his religion
Uber has dropped a driver accused by a Jewish University of Michigan student of making anti-Semitic remarks, precipitating a profanity-laced tirade by the would-be customer.
The cab company told student publication the Michigan Review this week that it was investigating the incident between driver Artur Zawada and student Jake Croman.
A video of Croman screaming a torrent of profanities at Zawada has gone viral since it was posted on March 23, three days after the incident.
Croman said he was responding to anti-Semitic remarks.
Zawada told the Review in an interview Monday evening that he did nothing wrong. He denies the charges of anti-Semitism.
Croman is being investigated by school administrators and his fraternity, Tau Kappa Epsilon, over the incident.
Zawada filed a complaint with the Ann Arbor Police Department. He told Michigan publication The Tab that Croman’s rant was unprovoked and came after he told Croman that he would not drive him because of three previous bad experiences with the student.
However, Croman told Tab that Zawada made an offensive remark and “refused to pick me up on the basis of my religion.”
An immigrant from Poland, Zawada has been in the United States for 30 years. He told the Review that he has no reason to be anti-Semitic.
“Half the Jewish people who founded Israel were Polish citizens,” he said. “I have Jewish friends. I have professors I know at the University of Michigan who are Jewish. I worked for my boss and he was Jewish.”
Croman is the son of multimillionaire New York real estate developer Steven Croman, who is being investigated by the New York State attorney general for allegedly using illegal tactics to pressure rent-stabilized tenants into vacating their apartments, according to the New York Daily News.
