A 24-year-old haredi woman on Thursday filed a civil suit against Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's wife Sara.
The woman claims Sara Netanyahu abused her when she worked in the Prime Minister's residence as a cleaning woman.
S.R., who is married and a mother of three , began working on the second floor of the residence two months ago, on August 27, 2017. She worked there for only a month, and is currently filing for 225,000 shekels ($63,780), claiming Sara belittled her, abused her, yelled at her, was cruel towards her, and even wanted to hit her.
"I never imagined that I would have to suffer abuse like that I suffered in the Prime Minister's residence at the hands of Sara Netanyahu," she told Yediot Aharonot. "I came into the Prime Minister's residence a happy, smiling, healthy woman who simply wanted to earn money to support her family. I left broken, depressed, sad, without any energy, barely functioning, paranoid and suffering from nightmares every night."
"For an entire month, every day, every hour, Sara Netanyahu terrorized me. Every little thing I did drove her crazy, until she lost control of herself. I keep thinking, 'Why did this happen to me? Why did I deserve to be treated like a slave?' At the end of the day, I came to work. As a girl and as a woman, no one ever yelled at me, no one ever tried to hurt me. I was always loved. And suddenly I come to the Prime Minister's residence, the place that is supposed to be the most respectful on earth, and I am treated violently, in a hurtful and abusive manner, by Mrs. Netanyahu. It was and is a complete shock for me."
The cleaner also claimed that she had to report for a military-style "cleaning briefing," and could only eat and drink at certain hours. In addition, she said she had to "come to work without makeup and without jewelry, and was not allowed to use cosmetics or creams." She was not allowed to use the residence's bathroom, she claimed, and was forced to use the security guards' restroom outside the building. She also was not allowed to eat or drink during the day.
An additional complaint was that all those who worked in the Prime Minister's residence were required to discuss and agree on a dress code. Sara Netanyahu told her to work in pants, so it would be easier for her to move and she would be more efficient. However, the cleaner admitted said Sara compromised on the requirement for pants due to respect for the haredi lifestyle.
Sources close to the Netanyahu family responded that "this is not a real suit. This is the attempt of a worker who worked for only a few days to squeeze 225,000 shekels out of the Netanyahus."
"This is just one more false claim, filled with lies, reused and recycled. Again someone is trying to get attention and money by slandering Sara Netanyahu and the Netanyahu family. There is no end to the persecution, the lies, and the character assassination.
"There is no question that important people stand behind this suit. I would not be surprised if the lawyer representing this woman is Naomi Landau, a lawyer working for the New Israel Fund who has turned the persecution of Sara Netanyahu into her profession. I would not be surprised if she is connected to Meni Naftali, the former caretaker of the Netanyahu residence who is leading a campaign vilifying the prime minister.
"The slander in the suit is imaginary. To understand how absurd this suit is, all you have to do is look at the calendar. Out of the entire short time she was employed - one month - the Prime Minister and his wife spent ten days in South America.
"Of the other days, there were Shabbats (Sabbaths, when no one works), Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year), the day preceding Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) and Yom Kippur itself. On all of these days, the woman did not work in the Prime Minister's residence. Of those days that are left, there are only a few days in which she could have seen Sara Netanyahu. The amount of time this woman spent with Sara Netanyahu is much shorter than what she wrote in her suit."
Sara Netanyahu herself worked as a cleaner while studying in university.She has been charged with several other things, but each charge was dropped as the courts found it to be baseless. Sara was indicted for the one charge which remained, but that charge, too, seems to be the fault of the Netanyahus' cook and not of Sara herself.
In addition to Sara Netanyahu, the cleaner is suing the Prime Minister's Office, the cleaning company which employed her, Netanyahu's haredi adviser Rivka Paluch, house manager Effi Azulay, and Prime Minister's Bureau Chief of Staff Yoav Horowitz.