Two incidents in two local high schools in recent weeks have highlighted the increase in antisemitism in America and around the globe.At Scarsdale High School, flyers put up by the student-run Israeli Culture Club promoting a gathering to celebrate Israel’s Independence Day were torn down and stuffed into bathroom urinals.
The school board president’s own daughter reposted a photo of a desecrated flyer on Instagram with the caption, “keep up the good work.”
Then, just weeks later and less than thirty miles away, a teacher at Nyack High School straightening up her classroom at the end of the day discovered a swastika drawn on one of her desks.
These are not random acts by disturbed loners. They are part of a broader trend resulting from the moral conflict over Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza and now in the war with Iran.
We cannot conflate Israel’s actions with Judaism
While that debate is essential, conflating Israel’s actions with Judaism in general is dangerous and lazy.
From politician’s podiums, Ivy League college campuses and Hollywood’s red carpets, America’s elites have espoused rhetoric that sows contempt and normalizes hate.
These are the very adults who shape our culture and our politics. This is what our children are absorbing.
There is a difference between criticizing Israeli government policy and treating the mere existence of a Jewish cultural club as an act of aggression worthy of desecration. The Scarsdale Israeli Culture Club welcomed all students.
It was not a political organization; it was not an advocacy group. It was a group of teenagers who wanted to celebrate a cultural heritage. The response was to dunk their flyers in a urinal and cheer it on.
Israel debate plays out in race for NY’s 17th Congressional District
I’ve seen the debate over Israel’s actions and the Trump administration’s military support for Israel play out in the Democratic primary for New York’s 17th Congressional District.
Beth Davidson and Cait Conley have said they support a two state solution.
The most outspoken critic has been Effie Phillips-Staley, who took a trip to Israel and the West Bank over the winter. She has characterized Israel’s response to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel as “genocide.” She has also described Israel’s relationship to the Palestinian territories as “apartheid.”
That language is defensible because it criticizes Netanyahu’s policies. But it is also inflammatory when heard by young minds that view the conflict as a simple victim and villain story.
I’m not saying that all young people are simpletons, but if someone with especially passionate feelings about the horrors we are watching playout in the middle east is learning about genocide in a historical context, what actions might they consider reasonable to fight genocide locally?
Politicians like Democratic Socialist Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, who has advocated on social media for a “from the river to the sea” eradication of Israel, is simply spewing hate speech.
Hollywood legend and Westchester resident Susan Sarandon attended a rally in Manhattan in 2023 where she celebrated that Jews in America were “getting a taste of what it feels like to be Muslim in this country.”
Calls to “globalize the intifada” also give permission to young people to harass, assault and kill Jews in America.
In an age of performative rage and maximalist language, words do not stay in Washington or in Hollywood. They travel, mutate and land in the hands of teenagers who lack the historical literacy to understand what swastikas mean, or the moral development to understand why a Jewish club’s flyer is not a political target.
The students who defaced those Scarsdale flyers or who drew that swastika in Nyack need accountability, education, and consequences. But they are also, in a meaningful sense, the last link in a very long chain.
If we are serious about protecting Jewish students in our schools, we must be willing to follow that chain all the way back to its beginning and demand better from the people who fashioned it.
Matt Richter, a veteran Hudson Valley journalist, is local news and regional opinion manager for lohud.com and The Journal News. He can be reached at mrichter@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Anti-Israel rhetoric fuels antisemitism in NY’s schools | Opinion
Reporting by Matt Richter, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
