Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Uber Infuriates The Internet With ‘Jewber’ Pun

Uber is having a rough week — and its “Shalom” message isn’t helping.

On Tuesday, the popular ride sharing service released its diversity report which revealed 63.9% of their company is male, and 49.8% white. Included in that report is a breakdown of the company’s various backgrounds which includes (in their own words): Los Ubers (Hispanic and Latino employees), UberHUE (Black employees) and Shalom (Jewish employees).

Under the Shalom category, the description reads: “Our goal is to make the world a little smaller, by connecting Uberettos and Jewbers from all backgrounds, encouraging collaboration and closeness from all corners of the globe.”

According to Uber spokesperson Matt Kalman, the employees themselves came up with their own terminology. Regardless, this did not sit well on the Twitterverse.

Uber is still dealing with last month’s scandal, when former employee Susan J. Fowler wrote a lengthy blog post detailing her experience with sexual harassment and chauvinism in the company’s workplace.

Travis Kalanick, Uber’s CEO, took to Twitter to say he would be conducting an “urgent investigation.”

“What’s described here is abhorrent & against everything we believe in,” he wrote. “Anyone who behaves this way or thinks this is OK will be fired.”

Thea Glassman is an Associate Editor at the Forward. Reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter at @theakglassman.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.