Something is wrong here.
A Jewish flight attendant is suing Delta Airlines for religious discrimination after her employer served her ham sandwiches and denied her time off on Yom Kippur, according to a federal lawsuit.
Sashi Sheva, 44, an Israeli from Encino, California, had been employed in good standing with Delta for two and a half years, according to documents in Brooklyn federal court.
But the airline “has a long history of intentional discrimination and retaliatory acts against its Jewish, Hebrew and Israeli employees on the basis of race or ancestry,” the lawsuit adds.
Sheba's complaint dates back to July 12, 2022, when she was on a Delta flight while on a business trip.
The company changed his flight times to coincide with the day he was scheduled to fly, according to court documents.
Because of the plane's noise, Delta put Sheba in a van and took her to the runway for the next flight to avoid delays, according to the filing.
But Sheba never had a chance to eat, and the airline ignored “his multiple requests for a 'safety break' to obtain a meal,” the court documents allege.
In addition to being kosher, Sheva is also a vegetarian, which is why she asked Delta managers to “stop in the concourse for a few minutes so she could purchase vegetarian snacks,” she said in the lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit, Sheba's employee profile “stated that he spoke Hebrew, was Jewish, and was a vegetarian, yet he was served a ham sandwich.”
But Sheba claims its request to cancel Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, in October 2022 was also “maliciously and without basis rejected.”
A Delta spokesman said: “As a global airline that connects the world, Delta has a zero-tolerance policy towards discrimination of any kind as part of the values we believe deeply in.”
Neither Sheba nor his lawyer returned messages.
