Cafe fined for refusing to hire Arab

A Tel Aviv labor court orders Cafe Al-Hayam, a branch of Cafe Cafe, to pay NIS 30,000 ($8,000) to plaintiff Omri Kis for refusing to hire him as a waiter because he is an Arab.

According to the Economy Ministry, Kis was accepted for training but ultimately turned away after a manager asked him about his ethnicity. The manager told him that as a kosher restaurant, it could not employ him.

“This is an extremely important verdict, both in theory and practice. Even though the severe phenomenon of discrimination against the Arab population exists in the labor market, it does not feature sufficiently in the verdicts of the labor courts. This shows the great importance of a verdict carrying a clear message to employees who are discriminated against – that the doors of the labor courts are open to every one of them,” says Equal Employment Opportunity National Commissioner Adv. Tziona Koenig-Yair.