A pair of heartless DMV staff compelled an ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn mother to strip her non secular head protecting for a driver’s license photograph — leaving her “traumatized” and fearing an antisemitic ambush.
Sara Fellig in the end complied with what she described because the “coerced violation” of her religion and has lived with the disgrace ever since, she stated in a Brooklyn Federal Court docket lawsuit.
“Forcing Ms. Fellig — or any married, ultra-Orthodox Jewish girl who wears a head protecting — to take away [their] head protecting in public is akin to forcing a secular particular person to strip bare in entrance of strangers, carrying all the identical disgrace, humiliation, and abasement,” she stated within the court docket papers filed towards the state Division of Motor Automobiles.
Two of Fellig’s three younger daughters, all of whom had been below 4, had been in poor health and she or he was compelled to tug one of many sick kids along with her to the Atlantic Avenue DMV workplace in downtown Brooklyn for her November appointment, she stated in authorized papers.
As she all the time does in public, Fellig was carrying a partial wig, or sheitel, together with a small hat. In Orthodox Judaism, a married girl’s hair is taken into account a sacred factor which ought to solely be seen by her husband.
When it was time to take her photograph, one of many staff insisted Fellig take away the top protecting.
State regulation forbids pictures which “obscure” an individual’s face or make identification tough, however Fellig claims her hat and wig weren’t protecting her face.
So she protested, prompting the employee to ask if she wore the hat for non secular functions.
However when the younger mother stated sure, the worker bizarrely declared: “Properly you continue to can’t put on your hat,” in accordance with the lawsuit.
A second employee didn’t intervene or right the primary worker, regardless of state regulation permitting these with “sincerely held non secular beliefs” to acquire an exemption.
“Ms. Fellig was so disturbed by the prospect of eradicating her head protecting in public that she contemplated calling her rabbi to debate the illegal circumstances she was going through,” she stated within the authorized declare.
However aware of previous hateful episodes, Fellig hesitated. In 2020, on Empire Boulevard, a passerby known as her a “f–king Jew,” and in 2023 on the identical avenue, a bigot instructed her, “the Nazis ought to have completed their job, you f–king Jewish bitch.”
With practically 100 folks within the room, and “aware of shifting sentiments towards the Jewish neighborhood because of the battle in Gaza . . . Ms. Fellig determined to not name her rabbi, anxious that onlookers would imagine her to be an indignant Jewish particular person looking for to make hassle.”
As an alternative, she eliminated her head protecting and stood for the photograph and was “overcome with guilt,” she stated within the authorized submitting, wherein she calls for unspecified damages, the destruction of her present license photograph and a free substitute.
“Every time somebody views the {photograph}, Ms. Fellig experiences a renewed desecration of her non secular beliefs,” in accordance with the lawsuit.
“Ms. Fellig’s emotional damages will proceed and multiply till a brand new {photograph} is taken and a brand new license issued,” she stated within the court docket papers, including, “she fears condemnation from her Chabad neighborhood — and her rabbi — in the event that they uncover that her official New York State ID depicts her with out acceptable headgear.”
“The DMV has the precise rule in place — however, for no cause in any respect, it wasn’t adopted in Ms. Fellig’s case,” her lawyer, Emma Freeman, stated.
