Kavim bus (archive)
Kavim bus (archive)Meir Sela

An Israeli legal aid organization is protesting a sign on a public bus which compared haredi Jews to pigs.

Menashe Yaddo, a representative of the Honenu legal aid organization, wrote to the Deputy Commissioner of Police and the Kavim bus company’s management to protest a sign found on a bus operating in the haredi city of Modi’in Illit which portrayed a Hasidic Jew as a pig.

The sign, which calls on passengers to refrain from eating on the bus or getting the bus dirty, shows a man wearing a traditional Hasidic hat and with payot (sidelocks). The man’s nose, eyes, and mouth, however, are pig-like.

A woman from Modi’in Illit snapped a picture of the sign on a Kavim bus, and sent it to Honenu, urging them to take action against the driver who, it is believed, put the sign up on his bus.

“The sign shows a haredi person with a pig’s face, a pig’s nose, a pig’s jaw line, and piggish behavior,” wrote Yaddo in a letter to the police Deputy Commissioner.

“The sign has a clearly racist message against the haredi sector. The portrayal of haredi Jews here is identical to way they were shown in anti-Semitic [messages] in Europe for centuries.”

Kavim, the company which operates buses in Modi’in Illit – including the bus in question – condemned the sign and vowed to fire the driver responsible for putting the sign up.

“The company was shocked to see the pictures brought to its attention in the media,” Kavim said in a statement. “We are disgusted by the expressions of racism and we condemn them. The bus driver will be brought in for a hearing ahead of his firing.”

Anti-haredi sign on Kavim bus Honenu via Twitter