French teacher sues UN school in New York after enduring ‘15 months of hell,’ Jew-hatred

A Jewish woman, who taught at the United Nations International School in New York for about 30 years, is suing the school, alleging that it ignored her reports of experiencing Jew-hatred on campus and responded by subjecting her to a retaliatory investigation.

Robert Weingrad told JNS that his wife, Nadine Sébag, 65, experienced “severe depression” as a result of what she experienced at the school and that she has been suffering from back and muscle issues as well as digestive problems, increased blood pressure and anxiety.

“UNIS had long known about this,” he said, of his wife’s experience.

Weingrad emailed school officials multiple times, including the school’s executive director, Dan Brenner, expressing concern about what his wife had endured, he said.

He also attended a meeting with Sébag, Brenner and other school officials in March 2023 after he objected to her being required to attend a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) meeting without knowing the allegations against her, according to a lawsuit that the National Jewish Advocacy Center filed on behalf of Sébag in the New York Supreme Court on Feb. 12.

The school eventually told Weingrad to stop contacting Brenner directly, which he obeyed, per the suit.

“It was a very frustrating and troubling time for us, and then it remained that way to Nadine until June of 2024, the last time she was at the school,” he told JNS. “She had 15 months of hell at that school.”

In 2022, Sébag, who is French and who was tenured at the school, was transferred from its Queens campus, which had closed, to its Manhattan campus, where she shared an office with two French teachers.

One, Nehad Soliman, a Muslim who wears a hijab, made repeated “antisemitic and anti-French remarks grounded in long-standing, derogatory stereotypes” while sharing office space with Sébag, including that “Jews are driven by money, that Jews control UNIS and New York and that French people are inherently racist,” according to the lawsuit.

On Feb. 13, 2023, Soliman put her cell phone in Sébag’s face and demanded that she respond to an “offensive” cartoon from the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. When Sébag didn’t immediately respond, Soliman went “into an angry tirade regarding France’s restrictions on religious attire in public schools” and accused Sébag of objecting to her hijab, per the suit.

Sébag told Soliman that she did not have an issue with the hijab but opposes women being forced “to wear religious attire against their will when men were not subject to comparable requirements,” the suit states.

Soliman then filed a complaint against Sébag, accusing her of discrimination. The school subjected Sébag to an investigation that lasted more than a year, according to the suit.

‘Completely fabricated’

Lauren Israelovitch, senior litigation counsel at the National Jewish Advocacy Center, told JNS that “the most shocking aspect was the fact that Ms. Sébag worked at the school for a little over 30 years, and that the person who initially filed the complaint against her ultimately admitted that that complaint was completely fabricated in front of a number of people.”

“Nonetheless, UNIS continued the investigation against her,” Israelovitch said.

According to the suit, Sébag was required to attend a meeting with school administrators and Soliman in September 2023. At the meeting, Sébag asked Soliman if she had ever commented on her Islamic faith or hijab. “No,” Soliman said. Still, the probe continued.

“What the person leading the investigation said was, ‘Well, yes, in her culture, sometimes “No” can mean “Yes,” and so we need to still continue the investigation,’” Israelovitch told JNS.

Eeqbal Hassim is described in the lawsuit as “a multicultural educational consultant retained by UNIS from Australia” with a background in Islamic studies, and was tasked with mediating Soliman and Sébag’s dispute.

“He doesn’t appear to be qualified to handle employment disputes or have any sort of credentials in employment compliance law or anything of the sort,” Israelovitch said.

Another teacher at the school, Isabelle Chu, alleged to Hassim that Soliman had “expressed anger” against Sébag for being Jewish and repeatedly said that anyone who crossed her would “pay accordingly,” according to the suit.

When Chu, who is not Jewish, defended Sébag’s Jewish identity, Soliman “physically assaulted” her, the suit states.

Chu was among the “multiple teachers” who reported having “personally observed Ms. Soliman engage in threatening and harassing conduct” toward Sébag and others, and “they themselves had experienced similar behavior,” per the suit.

Weingrad told JNS that his wife “was afraid of this woman, because this woman made it clear and said to her that ‘if anybody crosses me, I’ll make them pay.’”

“My wife’s been teaching for 30 years. She lives in another world. She never heard that from another teacher. It sounded thuggish to her,” he said.

He said that Sébag was new to the Manhattan campus and “didn’t want to make waves.”

“She had all this going on, and she just sat on it for a while,” Weingrad said.

Hassim later acknowledged that Soliman “required immediate evaluation and professional intervention,” but that never took place. Instead, she was given tenure, per the suit.

Sébag sent eight complaints to the school between February 2023 and June 2024 about “antisemitic harassment and retaliation she experienced at the hands of Ms. Soliman and UNIS administrators.” All were ignored, according to the suit.

‘Fearful and isolated’

Weingrad told JNS that his wife wrote of “her fear” of Soliman in the complaints, and Sébag “was spiraling, and she was insecure and fearful and isolated.”

During the investigation, a superior asked Sébag about her religion, according to Weingrad. “Just very, very crazy stuff,” he said.

Due to health issues stemming from the situation, Sébag went on six months of paid leave starting in August 2024. In February 2025, she resigned, according to the suit.

Israelovitch told JNS that “although the school didn’t terminate her, it was essentially constructive termination, because the environment had become so hostile that she was unable to work there.”

“Ultimately, she was advised by her physician that that environment was just too toxic for her to return,” she said.

Weingrad said he doesn’t think his wife would ever be comfortable teaching at the school again and is unsure if she will ever teach again at all.

“She wanted to retire at age 67, not 64. That’s always been made plain to UNIS,” he said, adding that her plan was “chiefly interrupted and terminated due to what happened to her.”

Weingrad and his wife are “taking it day by day.”

“The suit was just filed, we’re sober about it,” he said. “We’ll see what happens.”

Israelovitch told JNS that she hopes that “the school will learn from this and treat everybody in the school equally.”

“When a Jewish teacher expresses concern or reports an antisemitic incident and complaint, the school should be responding, and in this case, she was completely ignored,” she said.

Lupe Todd-Medina, a spokeswoman for the school, told JNS that it “stands firm against these baseless allegations.”

“We are confident that this matter will be addressed through the proper legal process and that our institution’s integrity and reputation will be upheld,” Todd-Medina said.

The lawsuit alleges that while the private pre-K to grade 12 school describes itself as secular, the UNIS promotes Islamic religious programming and imagery. It further states that the school maintains substantial financial ties to certain U.N. member states, including the Sultanate of Oman and the State of Qatar, and has a governance structure closely linked to them. According to the suit, the permanent representatives of Qatar and Oman serve as honorary trustees of the UNIS Board.

The lawsuit states that Qatar pledged around $60 million to the school in 2023 and that Oman, by 2020, provided “cumulative support reportedly exceeding $55 million” to the educational institution.

“One could certainly question, if the school is getting millions of dollars from Qatar and Oman, then could it be that it might not be pleasing to those donors if antisemitism is handled the way it ought to be,” Israelovitch told JNS.

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