Orthodox Jewish Boy Allegedly Forced to Sit on Floor of UK Hospital

By Hamodia Staff

An Orthodox Jewish family alleges that their son was forced to sit on the floor of a hospital in Manchester by nurses wearing pro-Palestinian pins, the Daily Mail reported Thursday.

The uncle of a nine-year-old boy who was wearing a yarmulkah and tzitzis says his nephew was “kicked out of his bay’ at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital by the nurses, and was made to “lie on the floor with a cannula [IV line] in.”

After the ordeal, the child required hospital care again, but this time he was afraid to wear anything which made him identifiably Jewish, the family said. When admitted without his religious attire, he was treated the same as the other patients, they added.

“Is it 1940 again?” the boy’s uncle wrote on social media. “It is terrifying to be a Jew in the world again.” 

“Now the damage is done and my proudly Jewish nephew (and his parents) is scared to not get treatment if he wears his Kippa and tzitzit,” the uncle told the Daily Mail. “Coincidentally, today when not visibly Jewish, he received quick care.”

The child had been seen many times in the hospital before Oct 7, and did not have an issue prior, the uncle said.

The Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester and Region demanded that the incident be investigated with “extreme urgency.” 

Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, which runs RMCH, said in a statement: “We are aware of images and very serious claims which are circulating on social media. We are rapidly investigating these to establish the situation and are discussing them with the family involved.

Antisemitic crime has hit record highs since the Oct. 7 massacre; the Community Security Trust organization reported that there were 4,103 anti-Jewish bias incidents in 2023, with two-thirds of them occurring after Oct 7.