Unpleasant Work Environment

Interesting story in today's NY Post:

A Jewish art teacher claims her principal's Christian prayer groups and the staff's anti-Semitic slurs turned her job at a Brooklyn public school into a living hell - and now she's fighting back with a lawsuit.

... Eder said the problems began about six months into her new job. She said she was approached by one of the teachers and asked whether she wanted to join the "prayer circle" of six faculty members who huddled every morning with Principal Sheila Richards. She declined.

Then, during a staff meeting at the beginning of her second year, the principal invited the teachers out into the hallway to join in a group prayer.

"She asked Jesus Christ for guidance in the upcoming school year," Eder said. "I was the only one that didn't participate. I do fundamentally believe in the separation of church and state so you can have religious freedom."

The other teachers, however, were shocked that Eder bowed out of the prayer, she said.

Another prayer session detailed by Eder occurred in 2003, when, she said, English department staff asked students to bow their heads as they waited to start their Regents exams.

The Department of Education refused to comment on the allegations, but a 1964 Supreme Court decision prohibits faculty-led prayer in school.

Eder said her alienation from her Christian peers reached a peak during a staff-development seminar in 2004, when faculty members were instructed to divide into groups and discuss why Gandhi, King and Hitler were considered "revolutionary figures."

"Somebody said, 'Let the students draw their own conclusions about the Holocaust,' " she said. "I didn't realize the Holocaust was a revolution that made a positive change. I couldn't make them understand."

Eder also claimed that a picture card of Rebbe Moshiach, the Jewish prophet, was placed on her seat in the teacher's lounge to identify it as hers.

Irrelevant side point: Flatly calling the late Lubavitcher Rebbe the "Rebbe Moshiach" and the "Jewish Prophet" is an amusing editorial decision by the Post. I guess the paper has weighed in on whether they are Meshichists or not (or consulted with the wrong experts).

That aside, it sounds like an unpleasant work environment for this woman. Frankly, I'm shocked that this type of behavior would even be attempted in a public school - especially when laws governing faculty-led prayer so clearly prohibit it.