Health – Your “synopsis” of the law – “They must accommodate religious beliefs unless they can prove doing so will cause them minimal hardship” – is wrong.
The law is that may not discriminate based on religion. They discriminated based on you not working on Saturday (a day that they needed employees to work on). Likely, the case was dismissed. Correctly.
The only thing you could possibly contend is that they really aren’t hiring you because you’re an orthodox jew, and the fact that they blamed it on Saturday is a lie as proven by the fact that they could have somehow accommodated you as an exception.
Such a contention is obviously silly and wrong. It’s a pain to make exceptions, and likely would get the other employees rightfully upset. No one wants to work on Saturday.
As far as credibility calls, the finder of fact (in this case the judge – by choice of the defendant) is obligated, repeat obligated, to make judgment calls like I buy this or I don’t buy that, or I’m not sure etc., based on the evidence presented. The Judge’s job is to apply the facts to the existing legal standards.
Implicit in this obligation is to read expressions, context, and demeanor of all the witnesses and testimony, and to consider all the evidence.
The facts seemingly not in dispute (that the defendant was the initiator of the altercation, justified or not) shift some of the burden of proof on the on the defendant here.
Was there a legit case of self-defense? Legally, the one who concededly assaults another must prove this. Did they sufficiently? I doubt it. The Judge decided not.
After all this, you came along and made your own decision about the Judge’s motive. The burden of proof of this extreme statement is on you, just like the burden of proving justification is on the instigator. You have not come close.