Harvard University discriminated against a Jewish employee by firing him after he took two days off work to observe Rosh Hashanah, according to a lawsuit filed on Friday.
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleges that Daniel Lilienthal was terminated “abruptly” as associate director of finance and grants administration at Harvard’s public health school in October 2024.
He took off Oct. 3 and 4 that year, to observe the Jewish High Holidays, which his supervisor, Jackie Blake, executive director for finance, administration and information technology at the school’s Center for Biostatistics in AIDS Research, approved. And he told his team that he would be off those two days, according to the lawsuit.
While Lilienthal was celebrating the High Holidays, Blake expressed concern to Elissa Brennan, then the school’s human resources director, about Lilienthal’s performance despite not having shared any such concerns with Lilienthal, the suit alleges.
When he returned to work on Oct. 7, the next work day, he was told on a Zoom call, which was supposed to be about onboarding, that Blake had “serious concerns” about him. She also criticized his “productivity,” his “management style” and “taking time off,” the suit alleges.
“I don’t want you thinking you can just take off time whenever you want,” she allegedly told him. (JNS sought comment from Harvard.)
According to the suit, Lilienthal began the position on Sept. 23, 2024, and worked remotely from his home in New York. He also worked at Harvard from 2015 to 2023.
On the Zoom call, Blake also said that he hadn’t completed training sessions, even though she first told him about them right before he took off for the holiday, and she had said that they weren’t urgent, the lawsuit alleges.
On Oct. 16, 2024, Blake fired Lilienthal and told him in a video call he was not a “fit” for the job. Lilienthal asked if the firing was related to his performance and if he had done anything wrong, and she said “no,” according to the suit.
Between the Oct. 7 call and his firing on Oct. 16, Lilienthal had not received any negative feedback from Blake about his job performance, the suit alleges.
The next day, Brennan, then the school’s human resources director, told Lilienthal that he was fired for performance reasons, and he received a formal letter stating he was fired because he didn’t have the proper “skills or aptitudes,” the suit alleges.
Lilienthal wanted to appeal his termination and file a complaint with the school alleging that Jew-hatred was the basis for his firing, but Harvard wouldn’t let him do so, the lawsuit states.
The suit alleges that Harvard subjected Lilienthal to “unlawful discrimination based upon his religion and retaliated against him following his engagement in the protected activity of taking time off for religious observance as a religious accommodation,” in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and New York state law.
Lilienthal has also suffered economic harm and emotional distress from his firing, according to the suit.
He is seeking monetary damages and a ruling barring Harvard from engaging in the alleged behavior moving forward.
In July 2025, Lilienthal filed a complaint to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over the alleged discrimination, according to the suit. The lawsuit states that Lilienthal exhausted “all administrative remedies” with the commission before filing the suit.
