Antisemtism In Schools

Antisemitism in schools is a large issue globally. Antisemitism has no place anywhere, especially in schools, where young minds are easily influenced. School needs to be a place where education beats any antisemitic beliefs and allows students to have opinions based on the facts they learn.

What does antisemitism look like in schools?

Name calling or using offensive tropes such as making jokes about wealth or greed directly relating to old antisemitic conspiracies.
Pulling off students kippahs or physically pushing them, therefore, creating an unsafe, anxiety producing space.
Excluding Jewish classmates and actively making them feel left out of social circles.
Drawing swastikas on students desks, lockers, bathrooms, or common areas.
Praising Hitler or doing the Nazi salute and making light of the Holocaust.
Lessons or assignments that promote antisemitic tropes, deny Jewish ancestral ties to the Israel, or hold Jewish students collectively accountable for geopolitical events.
Classroom exercises that force Jewish students to defend their identity or apologize for the actions of a foreign government.
Cyberbullying that follows students after school when they get home.
Students spreading conspiracy theories online or antisemitic posts online.

Did you know?

All statistics are reported by the ADL Center for Antisemitism Research (CAR)

In a survey of 817 adults, 71% of Jewish parents said that their child encountered antisemitism in the classroom.
There has been a 135% rise in incidents in K-12 schools over the past year.
Only 29 states mandate Holocaust education and only a fraction of K-12 parents surveyed, indicated that their child's school offered antisemitism (21%) and Holocaust (30%) studies.
1,162 antisemitic incidents were recorded in non-Jewish schools in 2023. That went up by 459 incidents in 2022.
More than 1/3 of all parents surveyed reported that their child has witnessed or experienced antisemitism in classrooms or through course materials.
Parents whose children did not have access to antisemitism education were 76% less likely to report awareness of antisemitic bias on campus.

What can schools do now?

Schools and school districts need to formally include antisemitism awareness education to help students gain understanding and empathy. Schools need to adopt Holocaust and genocide curricula offerings while providing antisemitism awareness and Holocaust education professional development trainings for all educators. It is important to ensure that educators aren't including antisemitic tropes in lessons, that sometimes they don't even realize are there. In addition, schools need robust incident reporting mechanisms that are known to members of the school community that offer a safe and welcoming space for students, adults, or educators to report incidents. The US National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism says to increase awareness and understanding of antisemitism we must tell positive stories of Jewish contributions to the United States and the world as well as including Holocaust studies in school curriculums.

Lets hear a real story

When interviewing a student from Champlain Valley Union High School in Hinesburg, Vermont, she revealed a harsh but true account of outright antisemitism. It is important to understand her experience with antisemitism to make sense of how antisemitism can occur in Vermont, with such a tiny Jewish population.

This student, that I will keep anonymous, said that when she was in middle school, her humanities teacher was teaching a lesson about historical events like the Holocaust. While she was teaching the lesson, she specifically mentioned that the Holocaust was the Jews fault. This is an outright example of antisemitism, and the fact she was able to teach that in a school is a serious issue that is deeply concerning. Historically, that statement is inaccurate and when teaching a group of young children, it is very easy to influence their minds as they have not formed their own opinions yet. That statement alone is a classic example of a child being taught an anti-Jewish theory, and to then grow up with that theory as their truth. It sets the grounds for Jewish hate at a young age.

When asking the interviewee how she felt in the moment, she responded with, "I felt angry mainly because I knew it wasn't true and also because I knew that this wouldn't be acknowledged as false information. I also felt sad and scared because that was my first real encounter with antisemitism, and growing up I never really thought it would happen to me." As a Jewish person myself, I never thought I would experience antisemitism either. I never thought it was a huge problem growing up until the war broke out in Israel and I started feeling hate around me. Sometimes it takes experiencing some form of antisemitism to feel the problem at its fullest and understand the weight and impact of it.

She went on to say that looking back on it, she feels regretful that she didn't say anything in the moment. She feels as if she could have offered a different perspective and shed some light onto the situation. She also shared that she feels angry because no student should feel like they can't speak up for something they don't believe is right. She also began experiencing more antisemitic comments from students, showing that young minds really are easily influenced and what the teacher said caused a domino effect of false ideas and outright hatred.

When I asked if she feels as if antisemitism is a big problem currently, she responded, "I do feel like antisemitism is a big issue today and it can be hard to find at times, because it doesn't always have to be big gestures or hate speech. It can show up in many different ways. Especially now with all the division going on in the world. The persistence of antisemitism really emphasizes the social issues and lack of education in understanding all different religions, ethnicities, and races." She emphasized the importance for education which is necessary in schooling to stop the spread of antisemitism.

Lastly, she shared a few ideas of how to combat antisemitism moving forward. She said personally she started connecting more with her religion and people within that community to deal with the hate she was experiencing. In a broader perspective she said we need more education around the Holocaust and antisemitism to raise more awareness. She states, "Teaching people about the history of Judaism helps reduce the ignorance and biases people have towards Jews. Even just learning about the Jewish holidays makes a huge difference in understanding and respecting the religion."