Rabbi at NIH claims his dismissal was discrimination, retaliation

[Ian David]

by Debra Rubin
Editor

A local rabbi says his dismissal as a chaplain at National Institutes of Health in Bethesda exemplifies religious discrimination at the facility.

Rabbi Reeve Brenner was fired in February as a part-time staff chaplain for NIH and its clinical center and spiritual ministry department for allegedly misusing his position, misrepresenting facts, being absent without leave and using offensive and disrespectful language toward a federal employee. He denies all the charges.

Brenner says the firing was in retaliation for his testimony on behalf of a fired Roman Catholic priest, Rev. Henry Heffernan, who was reinstated this month as a chaplain after the Merit Systems Protection Board ruled against the NIH, thus corroborating an earlier finding by the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission.

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Another terminated employee, Eastern Orthodox lay chaplain Edar Rogler, also maintains that she was fired because she agreed to testify on Heffernan's behalf.

Furthermore, she said that based on her experience with this incident and others, she believes that the NIH administration "will do anything to get the Jews and the Catholics out of NIH." She also alleges that Ray Fitzgerald, the department of spiritual ministry's chief and a Methodist minister, "never referred to the rabbi by name. It was always, 'That Jew, the Jew.'"

More:
http://www.washingtonjewishweek.com/main.asp?SectionID=4&SubSectionID=4&ArticleID=6859&TM=82764.73

[Lurking Dem]

1. Given the current climate here in the U.S. of A.

I'm almost afraid to say that is flat out antisemtism.

But it is.