Anti-Semitic incidents are continuing to rise on school campuses in the United States, according to the New York-based Anti-Defamation League.
Reports of anti-Semitic vandalism and bullying at non-denominational schools in grades K-12 in the state of California, for instance, have doubled since November 2016, as compared with figures for the previous year, the ADL reports.
The Jewish News of Northern California requested records of reported anti-Semitic activity from approximately 40 districts in the Bay Area, and subsequently reported this week (May 24, 2017) the records “showed a spike in incidents at schools in nearly every county, from Marin to the Peninsula to the East Bay and beyond.”
Many of the incidents were not reported in news media, and some parents of affected students said administrators and school districts were slow to respond. Of the 40-some districts where records were requested, 25 percent claimed they could not locate records related to anti-Semitic activity (which by law is supposed to be tracked). Two needed “more time” to search.
Here’s another example. In February, an incident at the Willow Glen Middle School in San Jose rocked the administration when students reported a classmate in the school cafeteria was carrying several pictures of Adolf Hitler and goose-stepping, yelling “Heil Hitler” and “Knight, knight knight!”
In addition to printing out more pictures of Hitler, that same student had approached a Jewish classmate, according to an investigation carried out by school officials, and “harassed her with anti-Semitic remarks and comments” one day earlier, The Jewish News reported. San Jose Unified School District director of student services Dane Caldwell-Holden recommended the perpetrator be expelled, and prevented from returning to school grounds, according to the report.
But there was no followup to determine whether legal action was taken or whether counseling was mandated to remedy the anti-Semitic behavior.
Moreover, many people do not report such incidents, due to fear of retribution.
ADL regional director Seth Brysk told The Jewish News, “One of the pitfalls we find educators falling into, is that the immediate assumption tends to be, ‘This is an isolated incident, this is a bad egg, this is a one-off thing…. The problem is, typically it’s not an isolated incident.”
