A passenger on a JetBlue flight discovered the slur “Zionazi” scrawled across his kosher meal packaging, marking the latest in a series of antisemitic incidents plaguing the airline industry.
StopAntisemitism, a U.S.-based advocacy group, first reported the incident on August 8, sharing an image of the defaced meal on social media. “StopAntisemitism is sickened to see a JetBlue passenger receive his kosher meal with ‘zionazi’ written on it,” the organization posted. “Whoever is responsible for this must be immediately fired – this is not 1941 and Jews will NOT put up with this hate.”
JetBlue confirmed launching an investigation but noted that no formal complaints had been filed by passengers. “We have zero tolerance for hate, bias, or discrimination,” the airline told JFeed in a statement. “We are deeply disturbed by the image circulating on social media and have launched an immediate investigation to determine which flight this may have occurred on.”
Just days before the JetBlue incident, Jewish passengers on Iberia Airlines flight IB102 from Buenos Aires to Madrid encountered a similar targeting of their religious dietary needs. Salvador Auday discovered “Free Palestine” written in black ink across his kosher meal packaging on August 4, while other Jewish passengers received trays marked with the initials “FP.”
“I reported the incident to the head flight attendant, who took down the complaint, took photos, etc. They tried to apologize in every possible way,” Auday told Argentine Jewish newspaper Vis á Vis. Flight crew believed the messages originated from the catering facility rather than being written aboard the aircraft.
Iberia responded more definitively than JetBlue, confirming that “several passengers discovered handwritten pro-Palestinian messages on their meal packaging during the flight.” According to the airline’s statement to The Algemeiner, “the captain personally approached them to apologize on behalf of the airline.”
Both airlines belong to larger aviation groups that have faced additional controversies. Iberia operates under International Airlines Group, which also owns Vueling Airlines—the Spanish carrier embroiled in another high-profile incident involving Jewish passengers just weeks earlier.
On July 23, Spanish police forcibly removed 52 French Jewish teenagers and their 21-year-old camp director from a Vueling flight in Valencia for singing Hebrew songs. Flight crew warned they would call police if the singing continued. Karine Lamy, whose child was among the group, told Israeli television channel i24NEWS that the children stopped when asked. Minutes later, Spanish Civil Guard officers boarded the aircraft anyway.
Police ordered the entire group off the aircraft and arrested the camp director, handcuffing her in front of the children.
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