Belgian Doctor Tells Jewish Patient to Go to Gaza

In an anti-Semitic outburst, a Belgian doctor refused to treat a Jewish woman with a fractured rib, suggesting she got to the Gaza Strip instead, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported.

“I’m not coming,” the doctor reportedly told her son, and hung up.

When the son called back, the doctor told him: “Send her to Gaza for a few hours, then she’ll get rid of the pain.”

The doctor, who was answering a hotline in Flanders, spoke with the woman’s son, who placed the call for her at about 11 p.m. on Wednesday. The woman, Bertha Klein, is American,

According to Joods Actueel, a local Jewish newspaper, the doctor admitted to the incident, but explained that he had an “emotional reaction.”

Health ministry officials said they were looking into the matter.

Meanwhile, Hershy Taffel, Klein’s grandson, filed a complaint with the police.

“It reminds me of what happened in Europe 70 years ago,” Taffel told Joods Actueel. “I never thought those days would once again be repeated.”

Michael Freilich, the editor-in-chief of Joods Actueel, noted that the incident comes amid a spate of incidents which involved boycotts against Jews in Belgium since the start of Operation Protective Edge on July 8.

Since then, an Orthodox Jewish woman was refused service at a clothing store in Antwerp, and police removed a sign in French and Turkish from a café near Liege which said dogs were allowed but Zionists and Jews were not.

This article appeared in print on page 4 of the August 1st, 2014 edition of Hamodia.