Jewish advocacy group sues NYC on behalf of Jewish health workers

NOVEMBER 15, 2026 18:20The National Jewish Advocacy Center (NJAC) filed a lawsuit on behalf of seven municipal health employees against the City of New York, its Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), and the agency's equal employment opportunity (EEO) director last Tuesday, alleging that the agency twice refused to recognize a Jewish employee group and subsequently subjected its leaders to a retaliatory investigation.According to the lawsuit, the health department operates an Employee Resource Group (ERG) program that provides approved groups with official recognition, an agency email account, a SharePoint page, calendar access, and an annual budget of $5,000.However, the agency twice refused to recognize a Jewish employee group named Hinenu in July 2025 and July 2026, claiming that Jewish identity is religious and that employee resource groups cannot be based on religious groups. The plaintiffs state that Hinenu's charter explicitly defined the group around Jewish peoplehood, ancestry, and culture, noting it would not engage in religious worship, instruction, or political advocacy.The complaint highlights that this rejection contrasts with the agency's recognition of six other groups, including one defined by the shared ancestry of the indigenous peoples of Southwest Asia and North Africa.A PROTEST takes place against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s appearance at the UN General Assembly in New York City, in September. Israelis and Diaspora Jews fought too much internally, until our enemies reminded us that we have no choice but to remain united, says the writer. (credit: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)'Unable to make findings'Following the murder of Jewish people gathered for a Chanukah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, in December 2025, Hinenu emailed approximately eighty-five employees to mourn the victims and held an online support space for grieving Jewish staff members. The agency's EEO director ordered the group to desist from using its email account before opening an investigation of eight Hinenu leaders for alleged racial and religious discrimination, in which investigators questioned them about their beliefs regarding Zionism and Israel in April.DOHMH closed the investigation in June, stating it was “unable to make findings,” and sixteen days later the same EEO director denied Hinenu's application in a single sentence citing only its alleged religious nature.The lawsuit alleges that this hostility occurred within a broader workplace environment at DOHMH shaped by official messaging and programming regarding Israel since October 2023.According to the complaint, this included division-wide communications from leadership discussing the establishment of Israel, recorded agency trainings referencing the October 7 massacres as armed resistance, and an agency-sponsored workshop organized by an internal working group that hosts described as developed in response to the ongoing conflict in Palestine, illustrating what plaintiffs describe as a systemic double standard in how agency resources and policies were enforced.Filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the lawsuit brings claims under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the New York State and New York City Human Rights Laws, and the First and Fourteenth Amendments, seeking recognition for Hinenu, the expungement of records, and compensatory and punitive damages.Alan Scheiner, senior litigation counsel at NJAC, stated that "the Jewish people should enjoy the same support and the same rights that are afforded by the law and the City to other ethnic and cultural groups," and noted that "here, a City agency has denied Jewish employees access to the same resources as other identity groups, and made its offices an unwelcome environment for any Jews who adhere to a fundamental element of their identity, which is the profound connection between members of the Jewish people and the people and state of Israel."NJAC CEO claims NYC doesn't accept Jewish identityMark Goldfeder, chief executive officer of NJAC, explained that "the City told its Jewish employees that every identity counts except theirs, then investigated them for grieving," and emphasized that "City Hall can hold whatever opinions it likes about the Jewish state; it cannot make hostility to the Jewish people a condition of working for New York."Steven Phillips, the Executive Director of JewishERGs, a global network connecting Jewish employee resource groups across over 250 workplaces in 9 countries worldwide, told The Jerusalem Post, "People assume the problem is what employers don't know about Jewish identity. In my experience, it's what they think they know. HR teams, diversity leads, and often the legal advisors they turn to are all confident that being Jewish is simply a religion. What it means to be Jewish is for Jewish people to define. Whether an employer can set that aside and substitute its own definition is now a question for the court, and we will be watching closely. We hear this story from Jewish employees again and again, and it reaches far beyond New York."Malka Shaw, LCSW, trauma therapist and founder of Kesher Shalom Projects, told the Post, “Some of the deepest injuries come from institutions that quietly redefine who you are, not from overt hatred. We are best described as a peoplehood, an am, and when an employer decides Jewish identity counts only as religion, while groups built on other shared ancestries are welcomed, it is overriding how a community defines itself.”“In the trainings I give for clinicians and organizations, I describe this as identity destabilization: a process of narrative distortion and defamation that reshapes how others perceive Jews and takes a serious toll on the people being targeted. It isn’t necessarily trauma, but it creates a heavy, sustained stress, and it is corrosive to the culture and climate of the whole workplace. People become guarded, they pull back from colleagues, and they start to wonder whether they really belong. The sequence described in this complaint makes it worse,” Shaw said.“Employees who reached out to mourn the victims of a terror attack were, according to the complaint, soon under investigation for discrimination themselves.When people who are grieving get recast as the ones causing harm, that message stays with them long after any case is closed. The fix isn’t complicated: let Jewish employees define their own identity, and apply the same standard you apply to everyone else.”"Most EEO and DEI staff have never been given the psychological literacy to understand Jewish identity, recognize how antisemitic narratives spread, and know how to identify and repair the harm before it reaches a courtroom, and until they are, this will keep happening," Shaw told the Post.Follow us on Google