08/11/2018
Britain’s oldest Jewish newspaper, the Jewish Chronicle, which editorially is supportive of LGBT Jews, says that an Orthodox nursery is appealing a ruling that found it discriminated against a Jewish teacher it fired after learning she was living with her boyfriend. Zelda de Groen won a claim of religious and sexual discrimination against the Gan Menachem nursery in Hendon at an employment tribunal last year, after losing her job the year before. But at a one-day hearing lawyers for the nursery argued that the original decision was wrong. Watford Employment Tribunal’s original decision accepted that many Orthodox Jews regarded cohabitation before marriage as morally incorrect. But it found that the nursery had not demonstrated there was any occupational requirement for teachers to conform to its fundamentalist interpretation of ancient religious texts. Ms de Groen is being supported by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. “No one should be discriminated against by their employer because they do not share particular religious beliefs,” an EHRC spokemsan said. Although involving a heterosexual teacher, LGBT legal experts will be watching the case closely. This is because religious fundamentalists of all faiths are frequently testing the laws that protect the non-religious and gay people from their teachings. A victory for the religious nursery in this case, could open the legal doors for other ultra-conservative denominations to challenge equalities rulings.
https://reformjudaism.org/jewish-views-lgbt-equality
https://reformjudaism.org/jewish-lifesocial-justice-advocacy/jewish-view...
https://www.jewishlgbtnetwork.com/
http://www.jewishsocialist.org.uk/
https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/anarchists-american-jewish-women
