Anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism in schools or places related to them constitute significant problems in a number of Western countries. Another issue concerns Holocaust education. When these studies are part of the curriculum in some schools, problems may arise with students.

Little is known about anti-Israeli incitement in schools in the Western world. Hardly any statistics are available. Because of the fragmented nature of the problems, many vignettes will be offered here to indicate in what areas far more detailed information is needed. A major study on this issue is called for and would require significant funding.

In some schools in a number of countries, a new young generation of Israel- haters and anti-Semites is being nurtured. There are only a few studies on some subtopics of this phenomenon in several countries. Some of these concern aspects of hatred related to Jews and Israel in schools. For instance, in the United States and France, bias in textbooks has been analyzed. A study in the Netherlands has dealt with anti-Jewish prejudice in Amsterdam schools. A 2011 study in Norway shows major ongoing anti-Semitism in Oslo high schools.1 As mentioned previ- ously, in Brussels,2 Antwerp, and Gent, studies of Dutch-speaking schools found that Muslim students are far more anti-Semitic than other students.3

Anti-Semitism in primary and secondary schools also extends to incidents in the United States. Pine Bush School District in upstate New York was sued by three Jewish families. In January 2014, federal authorities announced that evidence “is sufficient for a jury to find that the district failed to respond to pervasive anti-Semitic harassment in its schools.” The children from these families, who attended schools in the district, complained of anti-Semitic harassment in recent years, including seeing swastikas drawn on school property and students chanting “white power” and making Nazi salutes with their arms on school buses. In the worst anti-Semitic incident, a Jewish student was punched repeatedly by other students on a school-sponsored ski trip after he responded “yes” when his peers asked if he was Jewish.4

Textbooks

School textbooks are a major source of biased anti-Israeli teaching in several countries. In the 1990s Mitchell Bard published Rewriting History in Textbooks, a study of eighteen of the most widely used history textbooks in American high schools. He found them “full of factual errors, oversimplification, omission, and distortion. All these are consistently to the detriment of Jews and Israel. This inevitably leads to the conclusion that the authors are prejudiced.”5 Bard concluded that American “high schools are, as far as anti-Israeli teaching is concerned, even worse than universities.”

Gary Tobin and Dennis R. Ybarra’s book, The Trouble with Textbooks: Distorting History and Religion, confi med Bard’s fi dings.6 They reviewed twenty-eight high school textbooks in the U.S. from major publishers, focusing on four main subjects: Jewish history, theology, and religion; the relationship between Judaism and Christianity; the relationship between Judaism and Islam; and the history, geography, and politics of the Middle East.

Tobin and Ybarra found that Arab and Muslim interest groups try to white- wash and glorify all things Islamic, while promoting Islam. These organizations attempt—sometimes successfully—to advance the Palestinian narrative. Their discourse promoting a whole array of lies has permeated American textbooks. Several of these obfuscate, minimize, or even justify Palestinian terrorism. One book invests great effort in delegitimizing Israel as a Jewish state.

Another textbook states that Jesus lived in “Northern Palestine,” even though the term Palestine came into use much later. Tobin and Ybarra correctly viewed the inappropriate use of the term “ancient Palestine” as a red flag indicating distortion. The myth that Jesus was a Palestinian is also presented. Regarding the refugee issue, one text falsely states that Israel put the Palestinians into refugee camps, when in reality this was done by the Arab states that occupied parts of the former Palestine Mandate and those to which the refugees fled.7 Most books do not mention the Jewish refugees who came to Israel.8 Several textbooks state that the Second Intifada was a spontaneous uprising, despite all the evidence from the Palestinian side that it had been planned long before.9 The major lies and omissions are far too numerous to itemize.

Tobin and Ybarra wrote: “Historical revisionists and their anti-Western, anti- American and pro-Palestinian perspectives have found their way into textbook content and are largely consonant with the Arab narrative.” They also noted that “Some textbooks enthusiastically recommend [these revisionists’] works to students.”10 One of the authors’ major conclusions is that, during a period of increased need for better information about the Middle East, many publishers and educators disseminate politics and propaganda disguised as scholarship.

France

Barbara Lefebvre and Ève Bonnivard analyzed a number of textbooks used in French high schools and their teachings about contemporary affairs.11 Before that, Lefebvre contributed to a book by Emmanuel Brenner that exposed multiple manifestations of anti-Semitism, racism, and sexism in French schools.12 Nowadays there is a considerable amount of current affairs studies in French high schools. Yet Lefebvre and Bonnivard show that providing students with more information may actually cause them to become misinformed.

One of their important conclusions is that in many textbooks, criticism of the Taliban and other terrorists is restrained. When discussing 9/11, with only one exception, textbooks remain silent about the ultimate aim of the Arab hijackers—namely, global Islamic rule. Most of the textbooks treat terrorism as a symptom rather than a structured strategy of war, and they hardly refer to the terrorism of the extreme left in the 1970s.

Palestinian terrorism in particular is barely mentioned, “despite its contribution to shaping contemporary terrorism.” Lefebvre and Bonnivard ask: “Does not limiting Palestinian terrorism only to the course concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict reveal a desire to turn it into something different [from general terrorism]?”13

Another book edited by Lefebvre and Shmuel Trigano analyzed the image of the Jew in elementary and high school textbooks, as well as in dictionaries.14 In one essay on teaching about Jews and Judaism in high school history classes, Joëlle Allouche-Benayoun points out that these textbooks do not include Jews at all:

Not a single textbook mentions that Jews have lived on French soil for many centuries. In this light, it cannot be easy to understand that Jews were deported and murdered in the 20th century in Europe, because students have not learned that Jews even lived there at all! Nor is it mentioned that from time to time, they were the subject of hate and discrimination.15

Allouche-Benayoun adds:

To quickly summarize—who are the Jews in these history textbooks for children? One could answer with a caricature: in ancient times, they were the Hebrews whose religion, Judaism, was signifi antly improved by Jesus, the founder of Christianity. At the end of the 19th century, a Jewish French officer [Dreyfus] was accused of treason, dividing the country until the beginning of the 20th century. In the middle of the 20th century during the Second World War, Jews were exterminated, and subsequently others who created Israel carry on an unjust war against the innocent Palestinians.16

Belgium

Often a single sentence in a textbook can expose the bias of its authors. For instance, in a Dutch-language sixth-grade textbook in Belgium, students were asked to read sentences with the correct intonation. One of these was: “When a Palestinian child in Jerusalem saw a Jewish soldier arriving, he shrank in fear.”17 This sentence has both anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli elements. It is anti- Semitic because not all Israeli soldiers are Jewish. It is anti-Israeli because for a child, such a sentence helps lay the infrastructure of a negative image of Israel. One only has to imagine what the reactions would be if a Belgian textbook had included an intonation exercise with the sentence, whose truth can easily be verified: “After a Palestinian suicide terrorist killed many Jewish children and adults, the Belgian press gave most of its focus to Israel’s military response to it.”

Jehudi Kinar was Israel’s ambassador to Belgium from 2003 to 2007. He says that his embassy protested when the Walloon and Flemish governments subsidized anti-Israeli educational material for schools. While our complaints against these publications were given attention, nothing was done about the problems even though some of the prime ministers of those governments wrote to the ministers concerned. Among these were, for instance, Flemish Prime Ministers Bart Somers in 2003 and Yves Leterme in 2006.18

Britain

In Britain, there is proof that anti-Semitism is far more prevalent in Muslim schools than in other ones. A Panorama TV program aired by the BBC in November 2010 dealt with what is taught in Saudi-run Muslim schools in Britain. It found that these schools used textbooks from Saudi Arabia that teach children from age six and up that Jews are descendants of monkeys and pigs. After-school programs catered to about five thousand children from the ages of six to eighteen and were overseen by the cultural bureau of the Saudi embassy in London.

Th Panorama program also noted that one textbook stated, “Jews are cursed by God” and asked children to list the Jews’ negative traits. Teenagers who follow the Saudi national curriculum are being taught that “Zionists aim to take over the world for Jews and that the fabricated text of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is real.”19

Germany

In 2008 during a presentation to the Interior Committee of the German parliament, Deidre Berger, director of the American Jewish Committee in Berlin, said that school curricula needed to improve the knowledge of Jewish life and history, and also provide information about modern Israel. She remarked, “The material should take into account that up to a third of today’s students are of immigrant background with little or no knowledge of Judaism or even of the Holocaust.”20

An article by Gideon Böss in the German daily Die Welt accused the three major German textbook publishers of presenting Israelis as perpetrators and Palestinians as victims.21

Biased Teaching

Another topic for investigation is biased teaching. However, no detailed studies are available. The information on this topic is largely incidental and anecdotal in character. In the United States, one source of indirect information on biased teaching in schools comes from the youth group of the Orthodox Union (OU). The National Conference of Synagogue Youth (NCSY) has developed culture clubs in over 150 public schools across the country and reaches thirty thousand Jewish youngsters. Former OU Chief Executive Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb said, “We find that many children are very anti-Israeli. They have been very much brainwashed by an extremely anti-Israeli educational establishment.”22 In October 2011, it became known that the German EVZ Foundation had financed two high school programs that promoted hatred of Israel. This state foundation was created to compensate Holocaust slave workers and fight contemporary anti-Semitism.23 In one program a Dutch Jewish anti-Israeli extremist, Hayo Meyer, visited the Anne Frank High School in Gutersloh. There he equated Palestinian suffering with the mass murder of Jews in the Holocaust and termed Israel a “criminal state.”24

At a high school in the village of Nesbru in Norway, an exhibition sponsored by Norwegian Church Aid was held on “Palestine.” It included a picture of a crossed-out Israeli flag with “Murder” written in reverse underneath it. An Israeli student at the school protested and there was some negative media publicity.25

After even more negative publicity, the school finally decided to remove the exhibit. The student who had complained said her reaction was not at all supported by the school’s administration.26

The Netherlands

Dutch Holocaust scholar Johannes Houwink ten Cate remarks:

The anti-Israeli viewpoints in the Netherlands are even transmitted via elementary education. At the end of 2006, I was watching the news together with an 11-year-old child. The news showed that an error had been made and the Israeli army had inadvertently caused civilian casualties. The child didn’t believe that it was a mistake.

This seemed strange to me and I said: “Listen, you know that in general, the Israeli army tries to avoid civilian casualties.” He replied, “I don’t believe that. My teachers told me otherwise in school.” He did not want to accept my viewpoint. And that was a Dutch child of 11.27

In June 2010, the umbrella body of Dutch Jewry, Centraal Joods Overleg (CJO), wrote a letter to the Dutch parliament. Its main point was a request to pay attention to what was taking place in the educational system. One issue raised was that “No school in the Netherlands should be prevented from teaching about the Holocaust—a pitch-black period in Dutch history.”28

In February 2011, the CJO prepared another document on anti-Semitism in the country. It was sent to the Dutch parliament on the occasion of the plenary debate on anti-Semitism, which would take place there a few days later. One of the issues addressed was education in schools. The new text stated again:

No school in the Netherlands should be prevented from teaching about the Holocaust, an extremely dark period in Dutch history. Holocaust memorialization and education should no longer one-sidedly emphasize the similarities between the Holocaust and other serious matters in today’s world. It should be made clear that genocide is something fundamentally different from a political conflict where there are victims, however terrible one might find that.29

During and after Protective Edge fifteen Jewish families took their children out of Amsterdam Jewish schools and placed them elsewhere due to fear of attacks. It also became known that Jewish parents pay about ten times more for tuition at Jewish schools than at other schools. Half of this money is used for security.30 In autumn 2014, a delegation led by UK Labour parliamentarian John Mann visited a Jewish high school in Amsterdam. Afterward he said, “We were sur- prised that so many pupils said that they want to leave the country and go to Israel.” He added that he was surprised that the Dutch government remained silent about this issue.31 To be fair, one has to mention that also in the past many alumni of this school have left the Netherlands for Israel or elsewhere.

Sweden

Oredsson and Tossavainen wrote in 2003:

Teachers in Swedish suburbs report widespread and brazen hostility toward Jews among groups of Arab and Muslim students. This hostility is expressed by refusing to concern oneself with anything that can even be considered as Jewish. Students may sabotage or skip classes on religion when Judaism is the subject, or skip homework, books, or examinations on courses about Judaism. During history lessons, confrontations arise between teachers and students who may on the one hand say that the Holocaust never happened—instead dismissing it as Zionistic propaganda—or on the other hand, express their admiration for Hitler and regret that he didn’t succeed in killing more Jews.32

In 2008, Tossavainen returned to the issue:

In Swedish schools, religious studies are a mandatory subject. Students are taught not only about Christianity but also about other religions such as Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. The purpose of these classes is not—as when Protestant Christianity was the only religion in the curriculum—to spread a certain creed, but to provide a deeper understanding of other cultures and worldviews and foster tolerance. Some suburban schools, however, have a majority of Arab and Muslim students and they object to the teaching of one specific religion—Judaism. Some of them decline to participate in classes on this subject, some actively sabotage them, and others do not show up at all. Such students may refuse to do their homework or take tests on Judaism, or go on field trips to local synagogues.33

Sometimes students react very strongly when Islam is described as a religion that grew out of a tradition largely inspired by Judaism, rejecting the notion that there could be any connection between the two religions. As a consequence, these students’ knowledge of Judaism is usually very limited and their preju- dices are rife. They may “learn” about Judaism only in the mosques, where apparently they are mostly told that Jews are infidels who will burn in Hell.34

Another subject that sometimes causes trouble in these schools is the Holo- caust. The Arab and Muslim students often express either some form of Holo- caust denial or an appreciation for the genocide of European Jewry. Sometimes they profess both opinions simultaneously. While saying on the one hand that the Holocaust is a lie, or at least has been largely exaggerated by Jews to extort reparations or build sympathy for Israeli policies, they also state that it was a pity that Hitler did not kill more Jews.

One Holocaust survivor who gives lectures at schools all over the country about his experiences during the Shoah, tells of Arab and Muslim students who stay away from his talks, sometimes at their parents’ request. Students who do attend, he says, rarely express hostility, but those who do are exclusively “of Middle Eastern origin.” After his lectures he asks for the listeners’ evaluations, and once a student from an Iraqi family wrote:

What happened in the Second World War, I think it was a good thing that Hitler treated the Jews that way, because I hate Jews. After the war they tried to get a country because they didn’t have a country and so they took a part of Palestine and they created little Israel because Hitler threw them out of every country and that thing today [the lecture by the survivor was only crap. The film was bad and I think what Hitler did to the Jews served them right and I don’t care what you [the survivor] talked about and I wish that the Palestinian people would kill all the Jews. Jews are the most disgusting people in the world and the biggest cowards and because of what happened today, I wasn’t going to come to school because an ugly Jew comes to school.35

Other lecturers and teachers have similar experiences, with students expressing their hatred of Jews in the same kind of terms. They rarely make any distinction between Jews, Israelis, or Zionists, and have very clear opinions about Jewish behavior or characteristics, despite having had little or no interaction with Jews.

Tossavainen observes:

Teachers tend to point to the home environment as an explanation for these attitudes. In the segregated suburbs, immigrants live isolated from Swedish society, culture, and values, while staying in touch with the discourse of their countries of origin. Hence, Iraqi, Lebanese, and Palestinian students tend to be more anti-Semitic than those from Bosnia or Turkey, for example.36

Harassment of Jewish Students

Harassment of Jewish students occurs, although there is scant information about its statistical frequency. Until recently no statistical data on any aspect of anti-Semitism were available in Norway. In June 2011, the Oslo municipality published a study on racism and anti-Semitism among eighth- to tenth-grade students in the city’s schools. The results came as a shock to many people. The study found that 33 percent of the Jewish students regularly experience bullying at school. According to the definition used, this means that at least two or three incidents of verbal or physical abuse target these Jewish students per month. These data seem extreme for Western Europe. The study also made it difficult to blame anti-Semitism on Muslim children exclusively, as it turned out that autochthonous Norwegian students are also heavily involved.

After the Jews, the next most harassed group was the Buddhists, with 10 percent experiencing bullying; “Others” were at 7 percent and Muslims at slightly over 5 percent. Fifty-one percent of all students believe the word Jew is used pejoratively, 41 percent had heard ethnic jokes about Jews, and 35 percent had heard insulting comments. Close to 5 percent had been present when the Holocaust was denied in class. Only 25 percent of students had never witnessed anything negative involving Jews in school.37

These findings should have come as no surprise. Already in 2002, Martin Bodd, a representative of the Jewish community in Oslo, reported at an inter- national conference of the Anti-Defamation League that there had been more harassment of Jews in the preceding two years than at any time since 1945.

Bodd noted that “most of the incitement and harassment against Jews has not been reported. Hardly any of the children or the adults offended by anti-Semitic statements or the like is willing to come forward publicly.” He said there had been approximately fifteen incidents in which ten children had been harassed.38

A year later, Irene Levin, professor of social work at Oslo University College, observed:

Some Jewish children were told they would not be allowed to attend a birthday party because of the Israeli army’s actions. When there were anti-Semitic incidents at school, Jewish parents discussed this with some school principals who supported the harassment. One told a Jewish girl to remove her “provocative” Magen David [Star of David]. These incidents are important, but at present, remain exceptions.39

In 2010, journalist Tormod Strand of the state TV channel NRK broadcast a program about anti-Semitism in primary and other schools. It focused mainly on bullying of Jewish students by Muslims.40 The teachers and parents who discussed the repugnant facts did so, with one exception, on condition of anonymity. This was another significant indication of Norwegian reality.

The widespread anti-Semitism in Oslo schools is most probably linked to the extreme anti-Israeli hate-mongering in Norway as practiced for years by ministers from the previous Labour-dominated government, politicians, media, trade unions, academics, church leaders, and others. One important issue not investigated in the Oslo study is how many teachers discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in class and to what extent their remarks are biased. Though not stated explicitly, to several Jewish parents who did not wish to be quoted, it is obvious that hostile leftist teachers make remarks in school that put Israel in a very negative light. This, in turn, fuels negative attitudes toward Jewish children. In addition, efforts to blame the harassment primarily on Muslim students do not reflect the full truth; most of the aggression comes from autochthonous Norwegian children. Once again, however, it seems that the Muslim share in the harassment is probably far larger than their share in the student population.

All this happens in a country where the organized Jewish community numbers only eight hundred among a general population of about five million. The total number of Jews in Norway, which includes Israelis who often leave after a few years, is estimated at two thousand at most.

The Netherlands

The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI) has already reported for over a decade about the harassment that Jewish schoolchildren encounter. It publishes annual reports on anti-Semitism that include many specific cases.41

Some authorities have also made efforts to pinpoint problems. In 2003 the Amsterdam municipality wrote to the city’s seventy high schools asking to report on problems of anti-Semitism, hatred of homosexuals, or other forms of discrimination. This was in response to reports from various teachers that they did not dare teach about the Holocaust for fear of aggressive reactions from, in particular, Moroccan students. Only one school replied. Alderman Rob Oudkerk considered the schools’ attitude unacceptable. It seems that the schools tried to conceal these incidents so as to avoid a negative image or further escalation of the problems.42

In 2003, the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam organized a meeting of Ho- locaust survivors who visited schools to speak about their wartime experiences.

What prompted the meeting was that one of the survivors had been confronted by anti-Semitic remarks on one occasion and the teacher present had not in- tervened. Those invited said that most of their experiences were positive. One, however, mentioned that she had been asked by a Moroccan girl whether she didn’t think that “Sharon was worse than Hitler.” In another school, a student asked her why this specifically happened to the Jews. One student responded: “Because they killed Christ.”43

In 2005, media reported that the Amsterdam municipality was investigat- ing hatred of Jews at the Het Mozaïek Elementary School. Several students had pictures of Mohammed Bouyeri, the Islamist murderer of the Dutch media maker Theo van Gogh, in their backpacks. After a visit to the Anne Frank House, some eighth-grade students said that what had happened to Anne was “good,” or “They should have killed more Jews.”44

During the same year, the teachers organization Algemene Onderwijsbond (AOb), together with the Amsterdam TV station AT5, undertook a study on radicalization in schools. Two hundred and thirty-nine teachers answered the questionnaire. Forty-seven percent of them confirmed that they had experienced the radicalization and two-thirds of them were worried about the incidents. One-third of those who answered said that they often or sometimes experienced anti-Semitic remarks. The same percentage found that some stu- dents had anti-Western views. More than a third considered that they got too little support from the school board on this matter. A quarter said they were not sufficiently equipped to react.45

Henri Markens, director general of the Jewish school system (JBO) in the Netherlands, relates:

Students who transferred to [the Jewish high school] Maimonides from other schools would tell us about the anti-Semitism they had experienced. Every year we had a few children who transferred to us. This was usually because students in their previous school had made anti-Semitic remarks and the school had not done enough—or anything—about this matter. Other parents and children apparently considered the anti-Semitism normal.

Markens adds: “Often the students themselves informed . . . CIDI that they had experienced anti-Semitism. This organization also asked me from time to time whether I had heard stories from our students that were of interest to them.”46 During a four-day evening walk in 2010 in the southern part of Amster- dam, participants from the Jewish elementary school Rosh Pina were harassed and cursed at. The paper that reported this said they had already been having similar experiences for five years.47

France

Emmanuel Brenner (a pseudonym) and his associates have done groundbreak- ing work on describing anti-Semitism and other racism in French schools. Their work had some impact in France. The title of the book Brenner edited at the beginning of the previous decade translates as The Lost Territories of the (French) Republic.48 It refers to the breakdown of law and order in various domains of French society. This manifests itself, for instance, in the fear of the police to enter certain areas in and around major cities throughout the country. These “no-go” areas are largely populated by North African immigrants and their descendants. Many are Arabs, others Berbers.

Brenner and his collaborators describe and analyze this breakdown of French society in parts of the school system where anti-Semitism, racism, and sexual discrimination have emerged. On various occasions, these issues have not been dealt with appropriately by teachers and the authorities. In schools with large Muslim majorities, individuals from other groups often find them- selves so intimidated that they try to hide their identity.

Brenner’s book also contains testimonies by teachers describing many cases of extreme—mainly Muslim—racism. An English extract dealing with anti-Semitism in French schools has been published under Brenner’s real name

—Georges Bensoussan.49

Testimonies in the book indicate the serious plight of French democracy. Many teachers close their eyes to the violence, intimidation, and racism. Others describe the perpetrators as “hooligans” or “hoodlums,” in denial of the fact that there are elements in the French Muslim community as well as foreign TV stations that systematically incite against others. Some teachers try to maintain “social peace” by appeasing the bullies and withholding sympathy from their victims.

As noted, the cases described do not only concern Jewish victims. Some Christian students are so intimidated by the Muslim majority in their classes that they have considered converting to Islam. Teachers have been harassed as well. Some Muslim students expressed joy about 9/11, and many regard Bin Laden as a hero. It would be mistaken to think the hatred focuses exclusively on Jews and Americans; the more extreme Muslims’ main target is French society. Beyond the many stories of violence, threats, insults, and harassment, there   are other major problems in the schools. The testimonies mention teacher- arsonists who introduce politicized views of the Middle East conflict into their classes.50

Germany

Berger said in her presentation to the Interior Committee of the German parlia- ment, “Jewish children transfer, on a regular basis, to the Jewish school in Ber- lin in order to escape anti-Semitism at their public school.” She also remarked, “German school officials have alerted us to the fact that many incidents are not reported to either school authorities or justice officials for lack of definition and an effective monitoring system, as well as insufficient knowledge about Jewish life, history, culture and the Mideast conflict on the part of some teachers.”51

At a Berlin high school, a student said in class, “All Jews must be gassed.” In German schools, “Jew” is often used pejoratively. The educator Peter Wagen- knecht said that Jewish students increasingly conceal their background: “They don’t want to present themselves as Jewish. In such cases, the class often doesn’t know about their background, and the teachers keep mum.” He added that “the students are often acting on advice from their parents, who want to spare their children conflicts and exposure to aggressive behavior.”52

At the beginning of 2006, Der Spiegel reported:

The Jewish High School in Berlin’s central Mitte district resembles a high- security fortress. Those who want to access the imposing old building on Grosse Hanburger Strasse have to pass through a meticulous security check. The building is surrounded by a fence several meters high and video cameras record every move. Policemen stand guard in front of the building.

Around that time two Jewish girls transferred to this Jewish school from the public Lina-Morgenstern High School in Berlin’s Kreuzberg neighborhood. One of these girls had suffered anti-Semitic insults from youngsters with an Arab background. After some time, the police had to protect her on her way to school.53

Sometimes non-Jewish students also become victims of anti-Semitism. In 2006 a sixteen-year-old high school student in the town of Parey, in Eastern Germany, was forced by other students to wear an anti-Semitic sign in the schoolyard that read: “In this town I’m the biggest swine because of the Jewish friends of mine.”54

Harassment of Teachers

Harassment of teachers occurs as well. In its report on Dutch anti-Semitism in 2003, CIDI quoted Oudkerk, who had told a newspaper that several teachers had informed him that the subject of the Holocaust had become almost impossible to teach. He noted that this not only created an intimidating atmosphere but, in some cases, led to telephone threats to the teachers such as: “We know where your child goes to school.” As a result, Jewish teachers are inclined to conceal their Jewish identity.55

A Gentile teacher with a Jewish name reported that when he passed some students in school, they called him a “dirty Jew.” Another teacher was quoted as saying: “In my previous school . . . I sometimes said so as to confront pupils about anti-Semitism, that part of my family is Jewish. Now I don’t dare do that anymore . . . this is how one must have felt at the end of the 1930s.”56

This teacher was wrong, however. At the end of the 1930s in democratic Netherlands, before the German occupation, Dutchmen were not intimidated to such an extent that they feared revealing that members of their family were Jewish.

In Sydney, Australia, at the beginning of 2011, there were reports of a Jewish teacher being harassed by Muslim students in class. Two Jewish substitute teachers were told by other staff members that, to avoid being harassed, they should not mention that they were Jewish.57

A Jewish high school teacher in France, Catherine Pederzoli-Ventura, who taught history at the Lycée Henri-Loritz in Nancy, was suspended in September 2010 for four months. She was accused of devoting too much time to teaching about the Shoah. A report by school inspectors observed that she was using the word Shoah instead of genocide.58

The teacher’s suspension sparked a major debate and a support committee was established. The suspension was subsequently overturned, and in February 2011 Pederzoli-Ventura submitted an official complaint as a discrimination victim to the French prosecution office.59

The JTA reported in 2011:

David Katzenelson, an Israeli transplant who has lived in Norway for 15 years, said that Norway is not known as a particularly hospitable place for Jews. A high school math and science teacher who also runs the small Society for Pro- gressive Judaism there, Katzenelson said that a swastika was once spray-painted on his mailbox and that Jewish students of his have been afraid to publicly disclose their faith.60

Extremism and Terrorism

Extremism and terrorism against schools are yet another problem.

Hugo Deckers, secretary of the Belgian Socialist teachers trade union (ACOD), threatened Jewish schools. He sent a letter to the Flemish Jewish paper Joods Actueel about an announced expansion of Israeli settlements after the Palestinian Authority had gained membership in UNESCO. Deckers wrote, “If this is the [Israeli] reaction, I will, as union leader of the ACOD, bring the situation of Jewish schools in Antwerp to public attention. I suspect you will be frightened.”61

Over the decades there have been a number of violent attacks on Jewish schools. Several of these were in Muslim or Latin American countries. In most cases there was property damage but no casualties. In 1969, there was an explo- sion in the Jewish school in Tehran.62 In 1970, a bomb caused extensive damage outside the Khaddouri-Louise Zilkha School in Beirut.63

There were bomb attacks on Jewish schools in 1951 in Lima, Peru,64 in 1976 in Cordoba, Argentina,65 and in 1976,66 1979,67 and 1980 in Buenos Aires.68 In 1992, gunshots were fired at a bus of Jewish schoolchildren returning to Buenos Aires.69 In 1995, a car bomb exploded outside a Jewish school in the French city of Lyon, wounding fourteen people.70

In 2004, an arson attack took place at the United Talmud Torah Elementary School in Montreal. A letter left at the scene claimed it was a retaliation against Israel’s assassination of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.71

In 2006, there was a fi ebombing at the Skver-Toldos Orthodox Jewish Boys School in Outremont, Montreal. In February 2009 the perpetrators, an Algerian Muslim and his Kazakh-born accomplice, were sentenced, for this and the bombing of a Jewish community center in the town, to seven and four years in prison, respectively.72 In 2011 windows were broken at six Jewish institutions in Montreal, including four synagogues and the United Talmud Torah.73

The most serious terrorist attack has already been mentioned: in March 2012 Mohammed Merah killed a teacher and three children at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France.74

These bombings and other terrorist attacks on Jewish communities have created a situation where major security measures have been taken at many Jewish schools in the Western world.

Notes

1. “Religious racism shocks officials,” June 8, 2011, newsinenglish. no/2011/06/08/religious-racisim-shocks-officials.
2. Nicole Vettenburg, Mark Elchardus, and Johan Put , eds., Jong in Brussel (Leuven, The Hague: Acco, 2011). (Dutch)
3. Nicole Vettenburg, Mark Elchardus, Johan Put, and Stefaan Pleysier, , Jong in
   Antwerpen en Gent. Bevindingen uit de JOP-monitor Antwerpen-Gent (Leuven, The Hague: Acco, 2013). (Dutch)
4. Benjamin Weiser, “U.S. Cites Evidence of Anti-Semitism in School District,” The New York Times, January 25, 2014.
5. Manfred Gerstenfeld, interview with Mitchell Bard, “Introducing Israel Studies in U.S. Universities,” Changing Jewish Communities, 39, December 15, 2008.
6. Gary Tobin and Dennis R. Ybarra, The Trouble with Textbooks: Distorting History and Religion (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008).
7.    Ibid., 125.
8.    Ibid., 126.
9.     Ibid., 149.
10.     Ibid., 150.
11. Barbara Lefebvre and Ève Bonnivard, Élèves sous influence (Paris: Louis Audibert, 2005). (French)
12. Emmanuel Brenner, Les territoires perdus de la République, 2nd (Paris: Mille et une nuits, 2004). (French)
13. Lefebvre and Bonnivard, Élèves sous influence.
14. Barbara Lefebvre and Shmuel Trigano, L’image des Juifs dans l’enseignement scolaire (Paris: Alliance Israélite Universelle, 2006). (French)
15.     Ibid., 40.
16.     Ibid., 40-41.
17. Walter Janssens and Eddy van Eeckhoven, Taalknikker 6 Werotaal, Leerboek Taal a (Brugge: die Keure, 1999), (Dutch)
18. Manfred Gerstenfeld, interview with Jehudi Kinar, “Belgium’s Attitude toward Israel and the Jews,” Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism, 111, October 2, 2011.
19. Soeren Kern, “UK: Anti-Semitism Rampant in Muslim Schools, Second Generation More Extreme than Parents,” Hudson-NY, December 9, 2010.
20. Deidre Berger, “Anti-Semitism in Germany,” European Forum on Anti-Semitism, June 16, 2008.
21. Gideon Böss, “Veraltet, verdreht und völlig einseitig,” Die Welt, September 22, 2011 (German).
22. Manfred Gerstenfeld, interview with Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, “The Orthodox Union and Its Challenges,” Changing Jewish Communities, 23, August 15, 2007.
23. Benjamin Weinthal, “NGOs demand German Shoah group pay victims,” The Jerusalem Post, October 4, 2011.
24. Benjamin Weinthal, “Germans use ‘anti-Israel’ Jews to soothe Holocaust guilt,”
    The Jerusalem Post, October 16, 2011.
25. Eli Bondid, “Skole anklaget for antisemittisme i elevutstilling,” Norge Idag, October 26, 2011 (Norwegian).
26. McGonagall, “Anti-Semitic exhibition that was sponsored by Norwegian Church Aid removed after student protests,” Norway, Israel and the Jews, October 20, 2011.
27. Manfred Gerstenfeld, interview with Johannes Houwink ten Cate, “Nederlandse Joden in een maatschappij zonder waarden,” in Manfred Gerstenfeld, Het Verval: Joden in een Stuurloos Nederland (Amsterdam: Van Praag, 2010), 260-26 (Dutch).
28. Centraal Joods Overleg, brief aan de leden van de Tweede Kamer der Staten- Generaal, June 24, 2010 (Dutch).
29. CJO aan Tweede Kamer, “Pak antisemitisme aan,” January 27, 2011, cidi.nl/Nieuwsberichten/CJO-aan-Tweede-Kamer–Pak-antisemitisme-aan. html?lang=en. (Dutch)
30. Bart Schut, “Nederland in 2014: Joden moeten ‘etnisch onderduiken,’” Jalta, October 2014 (Dutch).
31. “Jonge joden voelen zich bedreigd en willen weg,” Reformatorisch Dagblad, November 29, 2014 (Dutch).
32. Sverker Oredsson and Mikael Tossavainen, “Judehat bland muslimer tystas ned,” Dagens Nyheter, October 20, 2003 (Swedish). English translation at freere- public.com/focus/f-news/1005044/posts.
33. Mikael Tossavainen, “Det förnekade hatet—Antisemitism bland araber och muslimer i Sverige,” Svenska Kommittén Mot Antisemitism, Stockholm, 2003, (Swedish).
34. Jackie Jakubowski, “‘Judarna kommer att brinna i helvetet,’ förklarar en Det fick han lära sig i en Koran-skola,” Judisk Krönika, 2, 2001 (cited in ibid.). (Swedish)
35. The letter is quoted in Tossavainen, “Det förnekade hatet,” The peculiarities in the grammar and orthography reflect the Swedish original.
36. Mikael Tossavainen, “Arab and Muslim Anti-Semitism in Sweden,” in Manfred Gerstenfeld, Behind the Humanitarian Mask: The Nordic Countries, Israel and the Jews (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2008), 94.
37. “Religious racism shocks offi als,” June 8, 2011, newsinenglish. no/2011/06/08/religious-racisim-shocks-officials; “Oslo municipality report in 2011 showed one third of Jewish pupils are physically threatened or abused,” Coordination Forum for Countering Antisemitism, May 14, 2012.
38. Martin Bodd, “Country Reports: Norway,” presented at the “Anti-Defamation League Conference on Global Anti-Semitism,” 2002, www.adl.org/anti_semi- tism/as_conference_proceedings.pdf.
39. Manfred Gerstenfeld, interview with Irene Levin, “Norway: The Courage of a Small Jewish Community; Holocaust Restitution and Anti-Semitism,” Post- Holocaust and Anti-Semitism, 10, July 1, 2003.
40. Katharina Schmidt-Hirschfelder, “So verbreitet ist die Angst,” Judische Allgeme- ine, June 10, 2010 (German).
41. cidi.nl.
42. Marcel van Engelen and Mijntje Klipp, “Scholen verzwijgen de incidenten,” Het Parool, November 8, 2003 (Dutch).
43. Ted de Hoog, “Kom maar op, kinderen,” NIW, November 28, 2003 (Dutch).
44. Hakehillot Nieuws, March 17, 2005 (Dutch).
45. Van een verslaggeefster, “Docenten kampen met radicale klas,” Het Parool, July 1, 2005 (Dutch).
46. Manfred Gerstenfeld, interview with Henri Markens, “Insights into the Situation of the Jews in the Netherlands,” Changing Jewish Communities, 50, November 2009.
47. “Chaotische taferelen bij avondvierdaagse,” Het Parool, June 8, 2010 (Dutch).
48. Brenner, Les territoires perdus.
49. Georges Bensoussan, “Antisemitism in French Schools: Turmoil of a Republic,” Analysis of Current Trends in Anti-Semitism, 24 (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 2004).
51. Berger, “Anti-Semitism in Germany.”
52. Björn Hengst and Jan Friedmann, “Anti-Semitism at German Schools: Insults Against Jews on the Rise,” Spiegel Online, August 12, 2006.
53. Ibid.
54. “Student Forced to Wear Anti-Semitic Sign,” Spiegel Online, October 13, 2006.
55. Hadassa Hirschfeld, “Antisemitische Incidenten in Nederlan Overzicht over het jaar 2003 en de periode 1 januari-5 mei 2004,” CIDI, 7. (Dutch)
56. Ibid.
57. Philip Mendes, “Anti-Semitism among Muslim youth: A Sydney teacher’s perspective,” Menorah Magazine, January 13, 2011.
58. “La suspension d’une prof juive d’histoire fait polémique,” Le Figaro, September 1, 2010 (French).
59. Paul Lémand, “Shoah: Catherine Pederzoli, depose plainte auprès du Procureur de la république,” Terre Promise, March 1, 2011 (French).
60. Alex Weisler, “As Norway’s Jews mourn, concern about muting of pro-Israel voices,” JTA, July 26, 2011.
61. “ACOD topman bedreigt Joodse scholen omwille van stappen Israëlische reger- ing,” Joods Actueel, November 3, 2011 (Dutch).
62. “Terrorist Incidents against Jewish Communities and Israeli Citizens Abroad 1968-2010,” Community Security Trust, 2011,
63.  Ibid., 32.
64.  Ibid., 46.
65.  Ibid., 38.
66.  Ibid.
67.  Ibid., 41.
68.  Ibid., 42.
69.  Ibid., 62.
70.  Ibid., 64-66.
71. Bram Eisenthal, “Quebec Leader Tours Firebombed School,” Jewish Journal, April 15,
72. Tu Thanh Ha, “How the Montreal Police nabbed two would-be terrorists,” Globe and Mail, February 12,
73. Peter Rakobowchuk, “Jews fear ‘orchestrated campaign’ of hate after attacks in Montreal,” The Star, January 17,
74. Edward Cody, “Mohammed Merah, face of the new terrorism,” The Washington Post, March 22,