“We commend Mavis for their commitment to complying with Title VII’s requirement to accommodate job applicants’ and employees’ sincerely held religious beliefs and practices,” said Arlean Nieto, acting director of the EEOC’s New York District Office. “Employers cannot refuse to hire a job applicant to avoid granting a request for a religious accommodation. Employers need to take reasonable efforts to accommodate an employee’s sincerely held religious belief, unless such an accommodation would pose an undue hardship.”

Very recently (was it 6 weeks ago or so?) Mishpacha ran ainterview with Yoeli Landau, a Satmar chassid billionaire. They even put him plugging the interview on the cover photo. They claimed then that while it is unusual to do so, to put a businessman on the cover and give him such prominence but they did it not because they are honoring a businessman who made lots of money but because of his story and how he grew up and then with honesty and yiras shamayim became a success and has complete fealty to his rabbonim... The interview, and especially the cover made waves and with it came a lot of criticism of Mishpacha choosing this and of Landau as well..

Personally I enjoyed the interview, even if I figured much of it was embellishment. For example, they sold him as having even been homeless at one point when he was younger and had to sleep in a shul..in the interview when he tells the story he describes how he slept in the shul so he could play homeless because he needed to qualify for welfare programs (like WICS or SNAP or whatever program it was at the time)...

Anyway, I am wondering if he now regrets having given the interview. it was supposedly a very rare interview as he normally stays away from the limelight and doesn't talk to media. I am wondering if he or those around him might think it caused him an ayn hara of sorts.


According to CBS News, Landau is in lots of legal trouble for playing foilishtik with his nursing homes. honesty and yiras shamayim are the name of the game...

A bankruptcy judge blocked an attempt by a nursing home chain's primary investor to shield himself from settlement payments and liability in lawsuits alleging hundreds of patient injuries and deaths, encouraging those pursuing millions in damages.

Genesis HealthCare, once the nation's largest nursing home chain, filed for Chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy in July with a proposal to protect its controlling investor, Joel Landau, from legal liability. In court papers, Genesis had originally estimated all its settled and pending cases — which it said numbered nearly a thousand — would cost $259 million to resolve.

KFF Health News reported this month that in the years before filing for bankruptcy, Genesis had settled at least 155 patient injury and death lawsuits with provisions that allowed it to delay paying, sometimes for more than a year. As a result, when Genesis filed for bankruptcy in July, it still owed $41 million out of the $58 million promised in those settlements with families of current or former residents, according to the bankruptcy and case records KFF Health News reviewed.

In hearings Wednesday and last week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas, Judge Stacey G.C. Jernigan said she would not approve a sale of the company's assets that included legal releases from liability for Landau and a private equity associate, David Gefner. Landau, who was seeking to purchase the assets through another company he controlled, did not attend the bankruptcy hearings or respond to a subpoena, lawyers said in court.