Prez of the Zionist organization MAGA hit with a lawsuit for racist and sexist behavior

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Morton Klein, president of the right-wing pro-Israel Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), has faced a lawsuit alleging racist, sexist and bullying behavior.

John Rosen, 62, is suing the nonprofit and Klein, along with former Trump attorney and ZOA board chairman David Schoen, for $1.2 million in damages.

Rosen, a former executive vice president of ZOA, claims he faced retaliation after filing a whistleblower complaint in February 2022 that detailed Klein’s racist and sexist behavior.

In the lawsuit, Rosen alleges that under Klein’s direction, the ZOA was plagued with malfunctions and irregularities. Klein, 76, he claims, ran the nonprofit as his personal fiefdom and created a toxic work environment. The lawsuit describes Klein as a man with an unstable temper, mixed with wildly inappropriate comments evoking racism and misogyny.

Founded in 1897, the ZOA is a far-right, pro-Israel advocacy organization. The group lent its support to President Donald Trump in 2016, backing his efforts to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and hosting Steve Bannon, Sean Spicer and Sebastian Gorka at its events.

Last year, Klein described Trump as the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House and awarded him the Theodor Herzl Medallion, ZOA’s highest honor.

(After Trump dined with Ye and openly anti-Semitic white nationalist Nick Fuentes, at Mar-a-Lago in December 2022, Klein told The New Yorker that he feared Trump was legitimizing hatred of Jews and those who hate Jews. Jews, but maintained Donald Trump is not an anti-Semite.)

Klein, a staunch supporter of Israel, has long been known for his controversial public comments. But Rosens’ new costume gives a glimpse of the chaos his alleged actions have unleashed inside ZOA.

For example, Klein was accused of racism when he criticized the Black Lives Matter movement in a series of tweets following the June 2020 murder of George Floyd, describing the groups as a dangerous extremist hate group funded by Soros.

Angry at the criticism, Klein then called ZOA’s chief marketing officer and demanded the numbers of two black female employees and a former black employee, according to the lawsuit. Klein said he wanted public statements from black employees that he was not racist, which he planned to post alongside their photo, the suit says.

Klein then called a black employee and asked her for a statement, which she declined to give, according to the suit. The same woman then heard Klein say at a party that more white men should be hired, according to the suit.

The employee complained to Rosen, according to the suit, who then brought him up with Klein who became furious and said he didn’t want to see his big, ugly face again.

In 2019, Klein refused to hire a candidate for a job at ZOA who would distract staff because she was too physically attractive, according to the suit. After hiring the least physically attractive candidate, Klein later told her that an earlier allegation of sexual harassment against him by a former job applicant was false because the woman was overweight and too ugly to be harassed.

The following year, Klein said he thought the anti-discrimination workplace trainings were forced on us by the left and were total rubbish, according to the suit.

Rosen also accuses Klein of violating labor laws. On one occasion, Klein slammed an employee with cancer for missing work, asking if she was in a coma, the lawsuit says. When another employee filed for extended maternity benefits, Klein said she could go to hell, according to the lawsuit.

Rosen complained to the ZOA board of directors about Klein’s behavior and an outside attorney was hired to investigate, according to the lawsuit. But when a draft report was filed, Tyler Korn, one of ZOA’s board members, felt it was too critical of Klein, the lawsuit says.

David Schoen, an attorney who represented former President Donald Trump in his second impeachment proceedings, joined the ZOA board in 2021. Rosen sent Schoen a 229-page whistleblower complaint detailing Klein’s behavior in February 2022, according to his lawsuit.

Rosen says he then faced a sustained campaign of retaliation from Klein, Schoen and the ZOA, which culminated in his dismissal for poor performance in August 2022.

Schoen says he received Rosens’ complaint and followed the whistleblower policy.

[Rosen] was apparently unhappy with the pace of the ongoing investigation, Schoen said in a statement to The Daily Beast on Thursday. He said an attorney requested by Rosen investigated the complaint.

The executive committee then voted unanimously to fire Mr. Rosen based on the findings and conclusions of the attorney Mr. Rosen chose to investigate his complaints. At all times, instructions were given that there would be no retaliation against Mr. Rosen for making the complaint and that there would be a full and fair investigation, Schoen said.

(Rosen originally filed a similar lawsuit against Klein, Schoen and the ZOA in November 2022. It was dismissed on the grounds that New Jersey law did not apply, Rosens attorney Alexander Sakin said. to the Daily Beast. The new lawsuit is filed under New York law, he says.)

John was not fired from ZOA due to performance issues, Sakin wrote in an email to The Daily Beast on Thursday, John was fired in retaliation for opposing what he rightly considered as a serious malfunction at ZOA, including uncontrolled violations of employment. laws, as well as the inability of the ZOA Board of Directors to provide sufficient oversight of the operations and management of the organization.

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