You can never check a story out enough, even at the blog level...from Historian Deb Lipstadt's blog

JTA and Haaretz [Among Others] Owe Us an Explanation on Supposed Antisemitic Incident in Belgium

Posted: 19 Feb 2008 05:50 AM CST

Last week I posted a comment about an apparent antisemitic incident in Bruges, Belgium. It reported that an American professor had been thrown out of a famous cafe because he wore a kippah.

To add insult to injury, when he went to the police to report the incident the police refused to take the report in English.

Then serious question began to be raised about exactly what happened. The cafe owner said that this was NOT how the incident proceeded but that there had been a dispute about the cost of the cup of coffee.

I had some questions about the incident and expressed my reservations but still posted it without checking further. My mistake.

Then an energetic correspondent, Dan, began to barrage me with emails which are posted here both at the original story [which is no longer there] and at "About this Blog" suggesting I check further. He was right.

A number of sites, have removed the post. Others including YeshivahWorld News have posted the response of the cafe. The cafe argues that it was about the price of the coffee. If so, then the man could not have been thrown out, since he obviously was served the coffee.

This morning I checked and the original story is all over the internet.

Since both JTA and Haaretz were the prime English language sources for this story, they should be doing some checking and, if not true, issue a retraction.

There are enough real incidents of antisemitism around that we do not need to be reacting to incidents which are not real.

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If this is correct...man is she right