Hasidic Nursery School Fires Teacher For Living With Boyfriend
No to Hatred: The Orthodox Shomrim security patrol will help protect a mosque in the heavily Jewish Hackney section of London. Image by getty images
(JTA) — A teacher at a Jewish nursery school in London claims she was fired for living with her boyfriend.
Zelda de Groen, 24, is suing the Gan Menachem Nursery in Hendon, North London, for more than $26,000 charging religious and sexual discrimination, according to British media.
The nursery for children under the age of 8 is described as “ultra-Orthodox” in the lawsuit.
DeGroen grew up in a haredi Orthodox home in Stamford Hill in London, but left “after many years of significant discontent.” She moved in with her boyfriend in April 2016.
De Groen, who has since married her boyfriend, said managers subjected her to a ‘humiliating’ hour-long interview in which they said it was time for her to get married, the Daily Mail reported. She also described their tone as “threatening.”
“The personal nature of the meeting, were humiliating,” she also said.
Two days after the meeting DeGroen asked her managers for an apology but instead was given a letter notifying her of disciplinary proceedings. She was fired a month later.
The Gan Menachem Nursery denies discrimination.
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.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
