A Jewish assistant principal in a New York City public school has filed a federal lawsuit claiming he was harassed by his co-workers because of his religion.

David Possner filed the suit in federal court in Manhattan against his colleagues at M.S. 226 in South Ozone Park, in the Queens borough, the New York Post reported Sunday. It did not say when the lawsuit was filed.

Possner has asked to be transferred from the school.

According to the lawsuit, colleagues texted him about work on Yom Kippur and he texted back, leading them to call him a “bad Jew,” according to the report. When he told the school principal, Rushell White, who is Christian, about the harassment, she responded: “Maybe you are a bad Jew.”

The principal also said she had “one Jew too many” in the school, according to the lawsuit.

Possner also claims that White made him do humiliating things in public and blamed him for incidents that he was nowhere near, according to the report.

It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!

We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.

This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions. 

We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.

As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday! 

Don't just read the Forward - invest in it. Make a gift and our board will match it.

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

$129 $180 $360 OTHER AMOUNT