The Israeli American Council received a 690% increase in complaints about antisemitic and anti-Israel incidents at American Kindergarten to Grade 12 schools in the three months after the October 7 Hamas rampage, the organizations announced on Thursday.
Through the IAC School Watch program, which allows students and parents to alert to antisemitic incidents in the 25 states that the organization maintains chapters, 324 antisemitic and anti-Israel acts by students and teachers were documented between October and January. In the same time period during the previous year there were only 41 incidents recorded by IAC, and 116 complaints during the entire school year.
Sixty-five percent of the incidents involved bullying and vandalism by students, and the remaining incidents involved anti-Israel class materials, statements or discrimination by school administrators and teachers.
“The majority of these incidents took place in high schools, while a smaller number took place in middle schools and a handful happened in elementary schools,” said IAC.
Student allegedly salutes teacher with Roman salute
Giving examples of some of the incidents, the IAC said that at a Las Vegas area school, a student allegedly saluted a Jewish teacher with the Roman salute. Jewish and Israel-American students were reportedly told that “Israel made up the October 7 attack,” at a Fairlawn, NJ, middle school. One report claimed that a student said that she supported the October 7 massacre and the beheading of Israeli children.
”Hitler should have killed all of the Jews,” one student reportedly told an American-Israeli child.
IAC CEO Elan Carr said that “These cases are deeply disturbing and totally unacceptable, and they reflect the increasing discrimination and violence that the Jewish and Israeli-American community is experiencing across the country since October 7.”
The wave of antisemitism comes after years of neglect of the problem, said IAC Vice President of Civic Engagement and Fighting Antisemitism Karen Bar-Or.
“We urge school administrators to put a focus on this and invest in training for educators to understand antisemitism and know how to recognize and handle cases when they arise in the classroom,” said Bar-Or.
Carr and Bar-Or called on students and parents to submit complaints to their report system. The IAC said that they were currently handling over 300 cases.
The IAC report follows a congressional hearing on antisemitism at K-12 schools on Wednesday. Several officials representing New York City’s public school system, Berkeley Unified Schools, and Montgomery County Schools were present.
The House Committee on Education and the Workforce heard testimonies about how at Berkeley, which saw pro-Hamas walkouts and Jewish students bullied, students shouted “f*** the Jews and KKK.” At Origins High School in Brooklyn, students reportedly praised Hitler and performed Nazi hand gestures.
The schools were accused of failing to take proper action to address the growing hostile environment for Jewish students.
Hannah Sarisohn contributed to this report.