The Israeli taxi app Gett is being sued for $58.5 million (NIS 150 million) on charges of discrimination due to providing customers with an option to filter out Arab drivers.

A “Mehadrin” option based in Jerusalem offered through the Gett app allows customers to order a taxi with a shomer Shabbos driver.

The class-action lawsuit claims that the Mehadrin option discriminates against Jerusalem’s Arab taxi drivers, most of whom drive on Shabbos, a Channel 12 News report said.

�They give it a religious title,” said Attorney Assaf Pink to the Guardian. “But, in fact, this is a proxy for a racist service that provides taxis with Jewish drivers. Of course, they can�t just say �we don�t want Arabs.'”

Pink and the Israel Religious Action Center carried out a private investigation before filing the lawsuit.�Channel 12 News broadcast segments of the hidden camera footage of the undercover investigation, with one scene showing an undercover private investigator asking a cab driver what the Mehadrin service offers.

“It’s only Jews,” the driver responded. “People don�t want Arab drivers.”

Another scene shows two investigators posing as potential Gett drivers in a meeting with Gett’s Jerusalem representative.

�Gett Mehadrin isn�t for religious people, it�s for people who don�t want an Arab driver,” the representative said. �I have 1,500 Arab drivers here, not even one of them is Mehadrin� and won�t be.”

Gett responded to the lawsuit by stating that “Gett provides its services to all taxi drivers and all its [app] users� and decisively objects to any kind of discrimination.”

�Regarding the last incident, the �Mehadrin Gett� fleet is just one of the fleets that Gett operates, is open only to Jerusalem users and was launched in order to satisfy a need for a specific sector in the population, to which, according to its faith, is unable to reserve taxis that cannot drive on the Sabbath and on Jewish holiday.”

�Every taxi driver who is interested in belonging to this fleet, including non-Jews, can join, on the condition that the taxi does not drive on Shabbat and during Jewish holidays.�

(YWN Israel Desk � Jerusalem)