In 2003, Jason Cutler sued a fellow officer in the Haddonfield Police Department, the Township of Haddonfield, and its then director of public safety.

He charged that the phrase “dirty Jews” was used in his presence, he was teased about his “big Jew nose,” told he would not be permitted to wear a yarmulke on Passover, and had his locker at the department adorned with an Israeli flag and a modern-day German flag.

Now attorneys for Cutler are asking the New Jersey Supreme Court to decide whether the remarks and actions of his fellow officers were “merely offensive” or created a hostile work environment.

A jury ruled in February 2003 that he did in fact face a hostile environment on the job, “based on his religion or ancestry.”

On Feb. 3, however, a three-judge panel of the Superior Court’s Appellate Division overturned that verdict. The court held that “epithets or comments which are ‘merely offensive’ will not establish a hostile work environment claim.”

Because the judges’ verdict was unanimous, it will not be automatically reviewed by the State Supreme Court.

Critics of the appellate ruling in the Cutler case say it may create a different set of standards for anti-Semitic incidents at a workplace than it does for similar incidents targeting women or people of color (see sidebar).

The president of the National Employment Lawyers Association, Alan Schorr of Cherry Hill, is urging fellow Jews to press the Supreme Court to hear Cutler’s appeal.

“For me personally, as a Jew, this is offensive,” he told NJ Jewish News. “The Jewish community really needs to stand up on this and tell the court that this is a hostile working environment, that Jews should not have to work in an environment where such anti-Semitic things were done. These things are extremely hurtful and extremely painful and have no place in modern society.”

Cutler’s lawyer, Clifford Van Syoc of Cherry Hill, also hopes there will be a “big outcry” in the Jewish community.

“Tell me how this is not a hostile work environment,” he said. “What was said was just as bad as using the ‘N-word’ to a black or the ‘C-word’ to a woman. The court just ignored all that. I can’t imagine too many Jews would want to work in an environment like that.”

The appellate panel’s ruling, however, likened the treatment of Cutler to “teasing” and “pranks.”

Appellate Judge Joseph Lisa wrote that the Israeli flag placed on Cutler’s locker “smacked of teasing and, objectively, was an item of which the plaintiff might well be proud. While the placing of a flag of modern Germany above the Israeli flag had some offensive implications, it was not a Nazi flag and was likely a prank concocted by the plaintiff’s friends,” the judge wrote in his opinion.

Schorr, whose organization’s mission is “to promote the interests of individual employees and assisting the lawyers who represent them,” disagreed strongly.

“For me personally as a Jew, I see that flag on that locker not differently than if somebody put a noose over a black man’s locker and said to him, ‘Well, what are you so offended about? It’s not big enough to really hang anybody,’” said Schorr.

“If you put a noose over a black man’s locker, you are reminding him of a time when blacks were tortured and killed and treated as property. When you put a German flag on a Jew’s locker, there can be no other reason than to remind him of a time when Jews were tortured and killed and made property.

“For the court to say ‘this is a harmless prank’ is so offensive that I think…education needs to be done.”

In contrast, William Tambussi, the Haddonfield attorney who represented defendant Theodore Dorn, the town’s former director of public safety, told NJ Jewish News, “There was absolutely no anti-Semitic tint” to the incident.

“It certainly was not a Nazi flag,” he said. “Nobody singled Jason Cutler out.

“Nobody knows who put the flags on his locker, and in the context of the bantering and the sophomoric pranks — none of which should have been occurring to begin with — Jason Cutler participated willingly and without complaint until the ‘dirty Jew’ statement was made.”

Tambussi was referring to an incident that occurred during a briefing concerning the Maccabee Games sports event being held in the nearby community of Cherry Hill. According to Cutler’s complaint, a fellow officer named Robert Shreve called the athletes “those dirty Jews,” then promptly changed the word “dirty” to “sturdy.”

Shreve apologized after Cutler protested and was later disciplined and demoted.

“I don’t condone any of these activities,” Tambussi said. “There were sophomoric activities that occurred in the Haddonfield Police Department. Those activities should not have occurred. Whether it rises to the level of a hostile work environment in which no reasonable Jewish officer in this circumstance would be expected to continue to work, the court found it did not as a matter of law.”

“That’s ridiculous; nobody knows who put the flags up. I did take offense to it,” Cutler told NJ Jewish News.

In his lawsuit, Cutler, now 34 and a sergeant on the Haddonfield police force, alleged that the anti-Semitism began in April 1999, four years after he joined the department.

He has cited other incidents of anti-Semitism, claiming he had also been offended by supervisors’ remarks about his “Jew nose,” that Jews “make all the money,” and that he would not be permitted to wear a yarmulke on duty during Passover.

But he never complained officially until his fellow officer made the remark in April 1999 about “dirty Jews,” a comment that Cutler said made him “absolutely disgusted.”

“Did I want to be the outsider? Did I want everybody to hate me, or was I just going to leave it alone?” he asked rhetorically. “I knew I had to live with it, so I chose to bitch about it with my friends outside of work.”

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