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In his suit, Akselrod — a Russian Jew who immigrated to the United States in 1979 and obtained citizenship in 1986 — claims to have suffered religious discrimination during the six years he has worked at the Four Seasons.

Akselrod said he sensed trouble shortly after he started working at the hotel, when his former supervisor Alberto Mezzomo, a defendant in the case, said to him, "Are you a Jew, Lev? I did not know you were a Jew."

Akselrod said conditions deteriorated after that encounter, resulting in an oppressive and hostile work environment. His accusations include:

*While cleaning up after Jewish functions such as weddings and bar and bat mitzvahs, Mezzomo and waiters he supervised allegedly wore yarmulkes left by guests, mimicked their accents and made derogatory remarks about Jews.

*When Akselrod was asked to serve Jewish musicians performing at a Jewish function, Mezzomo allegedly remarked, "Why didn't Hitler kill all those Jews? I hate them all. Why aren't they like we are?"

*Allegedly, some waiters routinely addressed each other with salutes of "Heil Hitler!"

Akselrod said that when he complained to Mezzomo about such behavior, Mezzomo told him, "You don't have any rights."

Akselrod also claims he asked Mezzomo's supervisor, Gunther Karsch, to put a stop to the offending behavior, but he says Karsch's response was, "People don't change."

"He didn't care. I was very disappointed," said Akselrod, who, in January 1996, turned to Stanley Bromley, general manager of the hotel.

Akselrod said he thought Bromley would be horrified at his account of events because he, too, is Jewish. "But he didn't do anything," said Akselrod. "This is what destroyed me."

In October 1996, Akselrod complained again, this time to the hotel's personnel office. An investigation ensued, and Mezzomo and Karsch were reportedly suspended for several days. But when they returned to work, the two men retaliated against Akselrod by cutting his hours roughly in half, said John Gleklen, Akselrod's lawyer.

Gleklen said hotel management prevented Akselrod from getting a full-time job at a Four Seasons hotel in California. "He was blacklisted by the Four Seasons because he complained."

The hotel's stated reason for not giving his client a full-time position was because he did not know enough about wines, said Gleklen.

Gleklen said Akselrod hopes to obtain the full-time position, back pay for lost wages and monetary damages in excess of $75,000 for pain and suffering.

Akselrod is "not willing to be silent" because he fled from anti-Semitism in Russia and lost his grandparents in the Holocaust, Gleklen added.