Antisemitic teens terrorizing Jewish teacher with Hitler jabs, death threats as NYC school refuses to discipline them: ‘I live in fear’: lawsuit
The kids are all reich.
A Brooklyn high school has become a haven for Hitler-loving hooligans who terrorize Jewish teachers and classmates, The Post has learned.
On Oct. 26, just three weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of 1,200 Israelis, 40 to 50 teens marched through Origins HS in Sheepshead Bay waving a Palestinian flag and chanting “Death to Israel!” and “Kill the Jews!” staffers said.
The hateful procession was shocking even for Origins, a school rife with bias and bullying, insiders told The Post.
“I live in fear of going to work every day,” said global history teacher Danielle Kaminsky.
According to interviews with multiple staffers, and a Jewish student’s safety transfer request, recent hate incidents include:
- A student painted a mustache on his face to look like Hitler, and banged on classroom doors. When someone opened, he clicked his heels and raised his arm in the Nazi gesture, security footage shows.
- Three swastikas in one week were drawn on teachers’ walls and other objects, a manager found.
- A 10th-grader told Kaminsky, 33, who is Jewish, “I wish you were killed.”
- Another student called her “a dirty Jew” and said he wished Hitler could have “hit more Jews,” including her.
- Students pasted drawings of the Palestinian flag and notes saying “Free Palestine” on Kaminsky’s classroom door. One scribbled note that said simply, “Die.”
The teen tormentors have so far faced no serious discipline under interim acting principal Dara Kammerman, who has done little beyond contacting parents in an effort to practice “restorative justice,” staffers said.
“She is perpetuating an antisemitic environment and a school of hate,” said Michael Beaudry, campus manager of the Sheepshead Bay building that houses Origins and three other schools. “The students continue these behaviors because they know there won’t be any consequences.”
In response, the city Department of Education said it will launch a probe: “There is currently no evidence that these claims are true, but we are investigating the claims.”
In a disturbing instance in late January, a group of boys came into Kaminsky’s classroom at the end of the day, and cornered her, laughing, she said.
“Miss Kaminsky, do you love Hitler?” one asked.
“I was so taken aback,” she said. “I did not respond, and they all gave the heil Hitler sign.”
Frightened, Kaminsky quickly left her classroom.
One boy waved to his friends to chase her inside the building, a scene captured on security footage, Beaudry said.
Kaminsky immediately reported the harassment to the acting principal — who refused to suspend the boys because she found they did nothing wrong, records show.
“We can’t do anything because the students claimed they were trying to have an ‘academic conversation,’” staffers quoted her as explaining.
Antisemitism at Origins HS has festered for several years, Kaminsky and Beaudry said.
At Kaminsky’s request last March, Kammerman arranged for a group of students to visit the
Museum of Jewish Heritage, which had a new program to educate students about antisemitism and the Holocaust.
The museum, in Battery Park City, first sent two female interns to Origins to prepare the teens for what they would see.
Several boys nearly brought the young women to tears with rude and appalling comments, according to emails with the museum and staff accounts.
One teen said he would have sex with a dead Jewish woman.
Another said he would “take money from the dead Jewish people’s corpses.”
Others made derisive remarks like “Who cares about the Jews?”
The museum canceled the visit.
When another group of Origins kids went later that year, some stuffed trash in the donation box.
The museum omitted a meeting with a Holocaust survivor because some kids were so disrespectful.
About 40% of Origins students are Muslim. DOE stats list 22% as Asian, 22% Black, 17% Hispanic and 32% white.
The school has many students in families from Middle Eastern nations such as Yemen, Egypt, and Palestine who identify as white, along with those from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in Central Asia.
Several Jewish students bullied because of their religion have fled Origins since last year. In that time, the school’s enrollment of 508 has plummeted to 445.
Currently, no more than a dozen Jewish kids attend Origins, staffers say.
In one case, a Jewish sophomore found three swastikas scribbled on his laptop charger when he returned from the restroom, he wrote in a safety transfer request obtained by The Post.
“I feel like in history class I’m always targeted and it’s hard for me to take,” the student wrote,
He also said he heard that a classmate called Hitler “the G.O.A.T.”
Jewish teachers suing NYC school that won't discipline antisemitic teens terrorizing them on daily basis: 'I live in fear' (nypost.com)