Local schools tackle rising antisemitism: principals, teachers, and students unite against hate

While public schools in the Five Towns, and local yeshivas, are taking measures to combat antisemitism in their academic environments, Richard Altabe, the lower school principal at the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach, says that more should have been done sooner.

“The issue of antisemitism was not a topic like racism, let’s say, or any other, like anti-LGBTQ or Islamophobia, (or) anti-Asian bias,” Altabe said of the area schools’ curriculums.

The Anti-Defamation League reported 2,031 incidents of antisemitism across the country between Oct. 7 and Dec. 7, up from 465 during the same period in 2022 — a 337 percent increase, and the highest number of incidents in any two-month period since 1979, when the organization began tracking them.

Most of the reports, the ADL said — over 1,400 of them — “could be clearly linked to the Israel-Hamas war.”

Altabe did not comment on where, specifically, he is seeing Jewish hate, but said that it is an issue everywhere, as a result of students’ use of social media, where he believes antisemitic rhetoric is prevalent.

HALB administrators sent a letter to parents immediately after the Israel-Hamas war began in October, advising them to prevent their children from using TikTok, Altabe said.

“We always had a position against TikTok, but we made a pretty strong demand taking kids off TikTok because all the negative imagery coming out of that Hamas attack was being shown,” he said. “We wanted to protect our kids.”

In the Lawrence school district, the focus for high school students is on experiential learning, though projects or presentations — for instance, creating art inspired by conversations with Holocaust survivors, art teacher Janet Ganes explained. As a child of Holocaust survivors, Ganes has focused on Holocaust education since she started her career at Lawrence High School in 1996.

Before the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, Lawrence High’s theater group, the Buskin Players, had planned to stage “The Diary of Anne Frank,” a play based on Frank’s diary of the two years during which she and her family hid from the Nazis in the Netherlands. Ganes had also assembled a gallery of former students’ work in the front of the high school, inspired by their visits to the Irving Roth Holocaust Resource Center, formerly known as the Holocaust Resource Center Temple Judea of Manhasset.

Three weeks into rehearsals for the play, the attack took place. “The immediate reaction of my cast was, ‘We’re no longer putting on a play, we’re making a statement,’” the play’s director, orchestra director Shelly Goldman, said. The performances took place Nov. 15 and 16.

Since the attacks, Lawrence students have continued to visit the gallery, Ganes has led the high school’s Hebrew Culture Club in conversations about Jewish hate, and the high school has planned a spring trip to the Holocaust resource center.

“Here and there, there have been instances of antisemitic occurrences, but the district has addressed it through education,” Ganes said of her years at Lawrence High.

“Usually, any mention of religion is not talked about in school, but in Hebrew Culture Club, we discuss everything we want to know about antisemitism,” said Jennifer Guardado, a sophomore member of the club.

Ava Abramov, another 10th-grader and a club member, said she has felt comfortable discussing antisemitism because the high school has created a safe environment.

“They have offered us the opportunity to speak to many different social workers about our thoughts and feelings,” Abramov said.

District Superintendent Ann Pedersen said she believes the school’s “cultural mosaic” helps promote understanding among students.

“We have the good fortune of being a very diverse community for a very long time,” Pedersen said. “Because of that, I think there is empathy.”

In the Hewlett-Woodmere district, Superintendent Ralph Marino Jr. said there has not been a noticeable increase in antisemitism, but students and staff are encouraged to report any incidents, to which the district will respond with “swift disciplinary actions,” Marino wrote in a statement.

“Hewlett-Woodmere Public Schools always strives to facilitate a culture of belonging for all,” he wrote. “Bullying, threats, harassment and violence of any kids directed towards a student or staff member is not tolerated for any reason. Racism and discrimination, including antisemitism, have no place in our district.”

In March, the district reported two incidents in which swastikas were found in the Woodmere Middle School boys’ bathroom. That prompted the district to invite Holocaust survivor Marion Blumenthal Lazan, a Hewlett resident, to address the students.

This school year, the Board of Education heard a proposal from Michael Cohen, the Eastern director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, for programming on all forms of hate, including antisemitism. Board President Debra Sheinin said that Woodmere Middle School classes had workshops and customized content targeting specific issues.

Antisemitism has also made headlines at college campuses across the country, and at Rambam Mesivta Maimonides High School in Inwood, the school’s dean, Rabbi Zev Friedman, said that has been a topic of discussion.

“We’re speaking to them about college,” Friedman said of the all-boys school, adding that Rambam students are being encouraged to rule out colleges and universities that appear less than friendly to Jewish students.

Have an opinion on the spike in antisemitism? Send a letter to jbessen@liherald.com.