Court awards Sephardi man NIS 50,000 in discrimination suit

Mishel Malcha compensated for discrimination after Israel Aerospace Industries reject him with no interview.

By YONAH JEREMY BOB
Sephardi school girl crying 370 (photo credit: Courtesy Noar KaHalacha)
Sephardi school girl crying 370
(photo credit: Courtesy Noar KaHalacha)
The Tel Aviv Labor Court on Sunday granted a Sephardi man NIS 50,000 for being discriminated against for a job by the head of paramedics at Israel Aerospace Industries.
When Gil Ron Brown, the head of paramedics, received Mishel Malcha’s resumé, he took one look at the piece of paper and said, “What kind of name is this? Who is this ‘ars’ (an ethnic slur against certain kinds of Sephardim) that you brought me as a candidate for a job?” Malcha’s colleague, Michael Goldenshlager, who worked for Brown, had given Brown the resumé on Malcha’s behalf.
Next, Brown rejected Malcha without giving him an interview.
Goldenshlager was the key witness for Malcha for winning the case, as the court accepted his testimony of what Brown said when looking at the resumé over Brown’s testimony, in which Brown denied making the ethnic slur.
The court was further convinced of Malcha’s claim as he not only had strong credentials for the position, but when he sent the exact same resumé in to Brown a couple of months later, merely changing his name to an Ashkenazi-sounding one, he was immediately invited for an interview.
The court called attention to the still problematic phenomenon of discrimination against Sephardim in the workplace and said courts must do everything in their power to fight it.