Outrageous antisemitic targeting of young Jewish students

Ten and eleven-year-old Jewish students from Melbourne’s Mount Scopus Memorial College were targeted with antisemitic chanting during a school excursion to the Melbourne Museum on Thursday.

High school students from another school chanted “free, free, Palestine” and “Dirty Jews” at the MSMC group as both school groups were in the same space in the museum. The MSMC group leader confronted the senior schoolteachers about their students’ behaviour, and moved the MSMC students away from the older student group.

MSMC wrote to parents saying that the school would follow up with the principal of the other school about the incident.

The letter said, “Upon returning to the college, we conducted a wellbeing check on all students to ensure they felt safe and supported.” The school encouraged concerned parents to contact the college’s psychologists or senior staff.

A MSMC parent posted on social media saying his 10-year-old son was called a “Dirty Jew” during the antisemitic incident. “They were tapped on the shoulder and then chanted at by these 16 and 17 year old students ‘free Palestine’ and then, as they walked away, were called “dirty Jews” and other racist comments.”

The parent went on to say, “This is not a political debate; this is pure, unadulterated anti-Semitism and hate.”

The Herald Sun has reported that the other school was Gladstone Park Secondary College, whose motto is “Knowledge is Power”.

Naomi Levin, CEO of the Jewish Community Council, said: “The JCCV was contacted by parents of students on the excursion. We have alerted the Victorian Department of Education about the incident and encouraged Departmental officials to follow up with Mount Scopus.

It is completely unacceptable that our youngest community members are being targeted.”

Levin highlighted that the 2024 Victorian Antisemitism Report showed a record number of antisemitic incidents targeting Jewish schools and students.

She said, “The JCCV will continue to work with the Department of Education to facilitate more opportunities for Victorian students to visit the Jewish Museum of Australia, the Melbourne Holocaust Museum and participate in Courage to Care programs. We need to educate against antisemitism.”

David Southwick MP, Victorian Shadow Minister for Police and Member for Caulfield, told J-Wire: “It is utterly disgraceful that Jewish children on a school excursion were targeted with political chants. Those responsible must be held accountable. Our museums should be places of learning and respect not arenas for intimidation and hate”

Alon Cassuto, CEO of the Zionist Federation of Australia CEO noted that this was where his children attended school, and said, “Ten-year-olds, on an innocent excursion, were harassed, targeted not for what they did, but for who they are. That any child in Melbourne should be held accountable for events overseas is not just absurd. It is dangerous”.

This is another sorry chapter in the string of antisemitic incidents targeting Melbourne’s Jewish community since October 7. This has included the Adass Israel arson attack, the firebombing of the East Melbourne Synagogue, the group invasion of a popular Israeli restaurant, firebombing of cars and an increasing number of other antisemitic incidents.

MSMC itself was targeted not long ago with “Jew Die” being graffitied prominently on the front fence.

Community leaders have been calling for action on antisemitism and incitement, while our political leaders, university administrations and many teachers in non-Jewish schools have helped create a toxic environment for Jews in Australia.

Cassuto lamented the current environment where “racism is excused as activism”.

Alex Ryvchin, Co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said the high school students have brought “disgrace to themselves, their school and their country”.

Ryvchin said, “Where would Australian high school students learn this behaviour? Form the belief that it is OK, even righteous to see a Jewish symbol on the uniforms of 8 and 9 year olds and subject them to chants about Palestine?”

“It comes from a certain moral collapse brought about by nearly two years of normalised abuse and violence, where anyone who holds an opposing view on the war is a Nazi and a baby-killer, where anything down to Jews living peacefully on the other side of the world is justified, or if impossible to defend, it’s a false flag.”

Daniel Aghion, President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said, “The antisemitic chants at 10-year-old Mount Scopus students, on a day visit to the Museum this week, are just shocking.”

“We have reached a low place in Australian society, when 16 and 17-year-olds think it is ok to chant ‘dirty Jew’ and ‘free Palestine’ at visibly Jewish students.”

“One wonders what the perpetrators learn about Jews in their home environment. It reinforces the urgent need for antisemitism education across the entire school curriculum.”