Jewish employee sues Delta Air Lines over ham sandwich incident

A Jewish Delta Air Lines employee is suing his employer for allegedly discriminating against his religious identity, according to a lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed in August and obtained by Fox News Digital Tuesday, accuses Delta of “engag[ing] in a pattern of intentionally discriminating and retaliating against ethnically Jewish, Hebrew and/or Israeli employees based upon their race and ancestry.”

California resident Sasi Sheva is the plaintiff in the case. According to the court filings, Sheva is Israeli and has been employed by Delta for two years.

The lawsuit describes an incident in which Sheva was rushing to a runway due to a last-minute schedule change. According to the document, Delta ignored Sheva’s requests for a “safety break” to “obtain a meal which accommodated his vegetarian restrictions due to the unforeseen time changes voiding his break.”

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Delta Air Lines employee Sasi Sheva sued his employer for a variety of reasons, including being served a ham sandwich as a Jewish vegetarian. (iStock / iStock)

“Plaintiff was refused,” the suit claims.

Because Sheva was hungry and didn’t have a chance to eat, he asked his Delta managers if they could stop in the concourse so he could buy a vegetarian snack. Instead, he was given pork, which Judaism prohibits.

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“Despite Plaintiff’s employee profile clearly stating he is Hebrew-speaking, Jewish and vegetarian, he was provided with a ham sandwich,” the suit states. “Although Defendant does conduct training on cultural sensitivity for different types of passengers for a myriad of customer profiles, such training does not include the cultural and religious needs of Jews.”

A Delta Air Lines Boeing 767 passenger plane arrives at JFK International Airport in New York City Feb. 7. (Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)

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The plaintiff then complained to his manager, but the lawsuit says “no action was taken to ensure that such an event did not happen again.” Later, Sheva asked for Yom Kippur off, and he was given a hard time, the suit alleges.

“Delta’s Accommodation Manager informed Plaintiff that to begin an accommodation review, he would have to provide a written statement in his own words, identifying the religious belief and practice requiring accommodation and documentation to support his request such as a statement from his religious leader on the letterhead of a religious organization, verifying his status as a practicing member of the religious organization and explaining the religious belief and practice requiring accommodation,” the lawsuit claims.

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“Plaintiff was never before required to engage in such intrusive examination of his private beliefs and practices, nor to his knowledge, was any other Delta employee.”

A Delta Air Lines Boeing 737-800 commercial aircraft on final approach landing at New York John F. Kennedy International airport in New York Feb. 13, 2020. (Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images / Getty Images)

After Sheva provided the necessary documentation and had scheduled a time for the accommodation review, he was reportedly told that there was “nothing [Delta] could do because any accommodation would negate Delta’s seniority system and that the only option was to deal with it on his own.

“Delta’s response was not only non-accommodating but, after imposing unnecessary and unauthorized hardships on Plaintiff’s accommodation application process, Delta’s response was devoid of any attempt to find a mutually acceptable solution,” the suit argued.

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A Delta spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit when reached by FOX Business but said, “Delta has zero tolerance for discrimination of any kind as part of our deeply-held values as a global airline connecting the world.”