An Ontario human rights adjudicator has awarded $7,000 to a former Toronto Metropolitan University teaching assistant who was fired after delivering a prayer referring to the “desecration by the Jews.”

Adjudicator Cyndee Cherniak rejected Ayman Elkasrawy’s allegation that the university fired him because he was Muslim. However, she found his creed played a “small factor” in the university president’s decision to disclose his employment status to B’nai Brith Canada.

Elkasrawy, who worked in the university’s engineering faculty when the institution was still known as Ryerson University, was recorded delivering an Arabic-language prayer at Toronto’s Masjid Toronto mosque in 2016.

The prayer was translated by CIJ News as calling for Jews to be slain “one by one” and for the Al-Aqsa Mosque to be purified from the “filth of the Jews.”

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Elkasrawy disputed that translation. He said the “slay them one by one” passage referred to members of Syria’s Assad regime and that his reference to Jews concerned Israeli control of Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Cherniak accepted his explanation and described the prayer as a “human moment,” finding the remarks did not represent his sincerely held beliefs.

The prayer was condemned by Masjid Toronto and the Muslim Association of Canada, which described it as offensive to Jewish people. Ryerson subsequently fired Elkasrawy, telling him his comments violated the university’s commitment to inclusion and undermined a respectful learning environment.

Cherniak dismissed Elkasrawy’s claim that the termination itself was discriminatory.

“I find that his identity as a Muslim is not the reason he was terminated because there is no evidence to support such a conclusion,” she wrote.

The adjudicator also rejected his allegation that posters placed around campus demanding his dismissal were Islamophobic.

The tribunal instead found discrimination in an email sent by university president Mohamed Lachemi to B’nai Brith after the organization called for Elkasrawy’s firing. Lachemi confirmed Elkasrawy was no longer employed and said the university remained engaged in addressing antisemitism.

Cherniak found that disclosure departed from the university’s confidentiality practices and inferred that Elkasrawy’s status as a Muslim religious leader was a small factor in the decision.

She awarded Elkasrawy $7,000 for injury to his “dignity, feelings and self-respect.”