A Chicago ward boss who was caught on a voicemail calling a rabbi an antisemitic slur left the job he had held for years with the city before he could be fired.
Alderperson Samantha Nugent, from the Northwest Side, reported her ward superintendent Andrew Szorc to the Chicago Department of Human Resources after she was informed of the voicemail in which he allegedly called a rabbi a “f***ing Jew,” local news site Block Club Chicago reported.
The incident led to Szorc retiring from his longtime city job. The Inspector General’s office ruled that Szorc’s anti-Jewish slur was in violation of city rules against discrimination and made the recommendation that he be terminated but instead he was allowed to retire. They also recommended he be placed on the city “do-not-hire” list, the Office of the Inspector General’s quarterly report said in April.
A spokesperson for the Inspector General confirmed to the news outlet that it had received a complaint from Nugent about Szorc’s statement.
The alleged antisemitic slur occurred when Szorc was attempting to reach a rabbi of a local school to speak about garbage and overgrown weeds on its property, according to a summary report of the case obtained by Chicago watchdog People’s Fabric. Szorc left a voicemail but did not realize he was still being recorded when he told a colleague: “Yeah, yeah, I left two messages for [unintelligible]. He didn’t call me back. F***ing Jew.”
The rabbi sent the voicemail to another rabbi and both contacted Nugent to report the incident.