(Berlin) A British Jewish family living in Berlin has pulled their
teenage son from a state school after nearly four months of anti-Semitic
harassment, both verbal and physical. The mother said she been attracted to the
school, Friedenauer Gemeinschaftsschule, which has a large proportion of Arab
and Turkish children, by the fact it was so multicultural.
“Listen, you are a cool dude but I can’t be friends with you, Jews are all murderers.”
The verbal abuse escalated to physical violence, until
earlier this month, “when he was attacked and almost strangled, and a student
pulled a toy gun on him that looked like a real gun. And the whole crowd of
kids laughed. He was completely shaken.
The mother spoke to the principal, Uwe Runkel, about
introducing an organisation to the school that could work with children to
educate them about anti-Semitic, Islamophobia and other forms of xenophobia.
Her in-laws, who are Holocaust survivors, were allowed to talk to the pupils there. However after the child was assaulted outside the school at a bus stop the mother decided there and then that she was not
sending him to this school any more”. On the school website, the Headmaster expresses his shock at this first instant of racism at the school and the loss of such an outstanding student.
So much for ‘Islamophobia’ and less of an outcry than any
silly little girl who lied about receiving a funny look for wearing the hijab.