Did Landlord Discriminate Against Non-Jewish Tenant In ‘Jewish’ West Side Building?
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — A $5 million lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court charges that a New York City landlord ignored decades of requests for repairs by a tenant because she was a gentile living in a “Jewish building.”
Tenant Sharon Kibbee de Lobo claims in the lawsuit that she has suffered for decades from leaks from a terrace above her Upper West Side apartment, which has caused damage including holes in the ceiling, damaged kitchen cabinets, rotted wood moldings and beams, ruined silk wall paper and sponge-painted walls, and a carpet-beetle infestation, the New York Post reported, citing the lawsuit.
Her complaints “were of no import to management because she lived in a ‘Jewish building’ and she had no rights as a non-Jewish tenant,” a property manager allegedly told her, according to the lawsuit.
A lawyer for the landlord, identified as Ennismore Apartments, disputed the claim, calling it “hard to believe,” according to the Post.
The tenant won a dispute in housing court on Friday, after the landlord refused to let an appliance retailer install a dish washer and stove, but still charged Kibbee de Lobo for the appliances.
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
, editor-in-chiefSupport our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
