A prestigious international school in Berlin has acknowledged that it underestimated the antisemitic bullying of a Jewish student.
The administration at the John F. Kennedy School has confirmed that it was informed of the harassment of a ninth-grader in early June but failed to act.
Reportedly, the boy was bullied on the way to and from school. In one incident a classmate pressed an unlit cigarette in his face and told the teenager he should think about his ancestors who were gassed to death in the Holocaust. In another, classmates harassed the boy with papers marked with swastikas. Some children accused the boy of being a “bad Jew” because he criticised both Israel and the Palestinians in the Middle East conflict, and he reportedly was teased over his appearance. The Berliner Zeitung reported that a Jewish girl at the school also was subjected to antisemitic bullying.
The school administration announced it was addressing the case with the city of Berlin and instituting measures to prevent recurrence, including discussions with educators, classes and individual students. Meetings have been held with the parents of those accused of bullying the teen.
The school, where English and German are the official languages, has some 1,600 students, many from families in the diplomatic service, particularly the US Embassy.
Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany – the country’s EJC affiliate – condemned the incident and said on Wednesday that it showed how urgently a reporting system for antisemitic incidents is needed in schools.
Noting that antisemitism is found in all parts of society, regardless of religious or ethnic background, Schuster said in a statement that “schools must take [such] incidents seriously and not sweep them under the carpet.”
