Treasurer Josh Frydenberg condemns ‘sickening’ attacks on Jewish students
With his own family having to flee Nazi persecution during World War II, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has denounced the disturbing trend of anti-Semetic bullying in Victorian schools.
Education
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Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says a creeping tide of “intolerance” and “ignorance” is to blame for a shocking rise in anti-Semitism in Australia, as he condemned reports of “sickening” attacks on young Jewish school students.
Mr Frydenberg, who’s own family fled to Australia to escape Nazi persecution in World War II, said two separate bullying incidents targeting Jewish school children in Victoria were “completely unacceptable” in Australian society.
“These reports just indicate a growing trend across the community of a 60 per cent rise in antisemitic incidents,” he said.
“In Victoria we saw swastsikas put not just on political material, including my own, during the election, but also on material promoting a play about Anne Frank of all people, that is just sickening to say the least.”
It has been revealed a 12-year-old Jewish student from Cheltenham Secondary College was forced to kneel down and kiss the shoes of a Muslim classmate, while a five-year-old boy at Hawthorn West Primary School was hounded by his classmates and allegedly called a “Jewish cockroach”.
Mr Frydenberg said children needed to educated on the history of antisemitism and the horrors of the Holocaust to ensure the community learned from history.
“Everyone should know that story, it should be in our curriculum ... so that we cannot repeat any of these mistakes of the past,” he said.
“People if they understood and comprehended the atrocities of the Holocaust then they would be as insulted as anybody, including me, about these recent attacks.”
Two horrifying attacks on Jewish school kids have forced one family to move schools while another student left to be homeschooled in what has been called the “tip of the iceberg”.
The incidents — which involved a 12-year-old boy who was made to kiss the shoes of another student and a prep student, who was taunted and bullied — have shocked members of Melbourne’s Jewish community.
The parents of the boys — who attended Cheltenham Secondary College and Hawthorn West Primary school respectively — approached Dr Abramovich, chair of the Anti-Defamation Commission, three months ago after the racist incidents occurred.
Today I have been shocked at reports of two serious anti-Semitic incidents in Victorian State Schools. I have written to the Education Minister calling for a full investigation. NO child should be vilified based on their religious or ethnic background. #springst @aus_jewishnews pic.twitter.com/jiVcrCFSAv
— David Southwick (@SouthwickMP) October 3, 2019
He said the attacks were “shameful and outrageous”.
“They (the parents) felt very alone and isolated,” he said.
“To think that in 2019 Jewish pupils are subjected to violence, verbal insults and taunts, bigoted jokes, social exclusion, demeaning text messages and malicious Facebook posts is heartbreaking.”
Photos of the attack on the eldest boy were posted to social media, adding to the family’s grief — and just days later the same boy was the victim of a “beating” by another student.
“The son, the 12-year-old, was so terrified that he wasn’t willing to go back to school,” Dr Abramovich said.
He called out the callous schoolyard attacks, saying they represented a much wider culture of racism and intolerance in Victoria’s public school system.
“This is a stain on Victoria’s education system that will long endure, and this incident is only the tip of the iceberg,” Dr Abramovich said.
“Bullying and harassment of Jewish students at public schools is a deeply embedded menace that is reaching pitch-fever and should alarm us all.
David Southwick, state Liberal MP for Caulfield, labbled the abuse “disgraceful” and the response from both the department and the schools, “entirely inadequate.”
But Dr Abramovich said the attacks were not isolated and that there was “mounting evidence” to show families of Jewish faith were taking their children from the public school sector and putting them into Jewish or other schools.
“We are facing a crisis of huge proportions, and unless this growing emergency is tackled head on and effectively, we will see even a greater exodus of young Jewish people out of the public school system.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Education said: “anti-Semitism has no place in our community or our schools, and any allegations of it are taken very seriously.
“All students have the right to feel safe and supported by their school. We take the wellbeing and safety of students very seriously, and are committed to ensuring schools are inclusive and safe learning environments for all students.
“We put in place supports for all students who are affected in incidents of aggression and violence in schools.”