Liberty Bank Antisemitism: “The Moment I Said I’m Israeli, They Called Security”

A routine visit to deposit $400 at Liberty Bank in Haddam, Connecticut, turned into what one Israeli customer described as a humiliating and deeply antisemitic ordeal.

The man, who presented his Israeli driver’s license as identification, said the teller deliberately dragged out the process. When he politely asked for an update, she abruptly refused to continue serving him, accused him of being “emotional,” and suggested that the problem was not her own lack of communication or slow service, but his character.

Frustrated and shocked, he turned to the branch manager, telling her: “I have traveled all over the world, and I have never seen such service, even though I am from Israel.” According to his account, that single word, Israel, was enough to trigger a chain of events. At that precise moment, the teller told a colleague to “call Joshua,” a coded summons for security.

At first, the man thought it was a technical issue, and that the phone call was perhaps for IT. But as the manager began slowly writing down his personal information, name, address, phone number, and even his Social Security number, while also working very slow on the computer as her colleague, he grew uneasy.

The charade of service continued, but when he pressed for answers about the teller’s conduct, the manager scolded him.

Then the truth slipped out: security was called. Only then did he realize, the moment he identified himself as Israeli was the moment he became a “threat”.

“They looked at my Israeli driver’s license as if it were a swastika,” he told JFeed on condition of anonymity. “They exchanged hateful looks. And basically, refused service to a Jew. I was devastated.”

Shaken, the man demanded his license and his cash back. “I expect a country like America to have a developed business culture, not to call security the instant someone says they are Israeli,” he said. “What I experienced was criminal, xenophobic, and utterly unprofessional.”

He likened the experience to dealing with “a small, provincial bank hiding behind the ironic name Liberty, but in reality, it felt more like Tyranny Bank.”

The customer, still reeling from the incident, now intends to file a formal complaint with the Connecticut Department of Banking, calling for accountability and warning that no financial institution should be allowed to treat clients this way because of who they are.