Various strains of marijuana. Image by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

(JTA) — A Muslim-British businessman was sentenced to 100 hours of community service for an anti-Semitic rant on an airplane last year.

Shamraize Bashir, 34, a businessman from Bradford, in northern England, blamed his anti-Semitic comments made in June last year on smoking cannabis during Ramadan, the British newspaper the Daily Mail reported on Monday. He was also sentenced to receive treatment for his cannabis use.

“You know the really fat Jewish women yeah? Their job is to let their husbands f—- them and make babies for them,” Bashir said loudly while standing with friends in the back of an EasyJet flight from Tel Aviv to the United Kingdom last June. He continued to swear after being asked to stop his rant.

Antisemitism Decoded

Arno Rosenfeld helps you separate the signal from the noise about antisemitism and understand current debates over Jewish safety.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Bashir was arrested when the plane landed in Manchester.

He told the court on Monday that his rant “was out of character,” and blamed it on his use of cannabis prior to the flight and during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which requires daily fasting.

Bashir’s attorney told the court that his client “had been to Tel Aviv and soaked up the culture, and had also sat and spoke to a Jewish lady for an hour – how could he be a racist?” He added: “No one on the flight was put in any danger and there were no arguments as such, there was no escalation and nothing further happened.”

The judge called the incident “particularly inappropriate” and a “very serious matter.”

Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount