Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Muslim CFO Of New York Jewish Museum Sues Over Religious Discrimination

(JTA) — The chief financial officer of New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage said he was pushed out of his position because he is Muslim.

Mohad Athar filed a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court alleging that he received false poor performance reviews after new CEO Michael Glickman took the helm of the museum in 2016. He said Glickman also made racial slurs, the New York Post reported.

“I am a Muslim. This is a Jewish institution. I never discussed my religion with anyone at the museum,” Athar told the Post in an article published Saturday.

Athar had been the chief financial officer of the museum for seven years when Glickman was hired.

The lawsuit said that Glickman immediately created a new financial position and hired one of his friends and required Athar to report to her, the Post reported.

Glickman also said that Athar did not know how to process payroll, according to the lawsuit, something Athar said he has been doing for 21 years, 11 of them at the museum.

The museum did not respond to the newspaper’s request for comment.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.