Ohio County Sued For Failing To Provide Days Off For Jewish Holidays
(JTA) — A former staff attorney for Butler County in southern Ohio filed a lawsuit alleging that she had to use vacation time to observe Jewish holidays.
Kimberly Edelstein in a lawsuit filed against Butler County, and its judge, prosecutor and assistant prosecutor, said she was not able to use official holiday time off in her observance of Jewish holidays, and instead was required to use her vacation time and work extra hours, the local Fox affiliate Fox19 WXIX reported on Tuesday.
She said she was fired two days after asking to take off eight days for the High Holidays last year.
She charged that the county authorizes Christmas as a holiday and does not provide official holiday time off for employees of different religions.
Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser told the news channel that Edelstein’s claims are “nuts.” He also said: “it is nuts for anyone to think I discriminate based on race, religion, politics, sex etc.”
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