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Israeli envoy asks Belgian news site to remove photo of masked ultra-Orthodox Jew

Ambassador Emmanuel Nahshon tweets that use by “The Brussels Times” of such a picture to illustrate a story on international COVID-19 deaths is “unnecessary and unpleasant.”

A photo accompanying an article in a Belgium newspaper about global deaths due to the coronavirus. Source: Screenshot/The Brussels Times.
A photo accompanying an article in a Belgium newspaper about global deaths due to the coronavirus. Source: Screenshot/The Brussels Times.

Israeli Ambassador to Belgium Emmanuel Nahshon is accusing a major English-language news outlet in Belgium, The Brussels Times, of anti-Semitism after the paper used an image of an ultra-Orthodox Jew wearing a mask to illustrate a story about global COVID-19 mortality.

“Global death toll tops 1.1 million. Why did you put a picture of an Orthodox Jew as illustration of your report? … it’s unnecessary and unpleasant,” Nahshon wrote in a Twitter post.

Nahshon, who has been fighting expressions of anti-Semitism in Belgium, was outraged over the choice of image.

Nahshon asked the news outlet to choose another picture. The Israeli Embassy in Brussels said, “This is how anti-Semitism is spread.”

This article first appeared in Israel Hayom.

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