School, parents take action over boy’s swastika Christmas cookies

A Berwick teen has been hauled into the principal’s office after he baked “disturbing” anti-Semitic cookies and uploaded images to social media.

A Year 8 student at a Berwick school has had his social media accounts shut down after the incident.

A teenage boy has had his social media accounts shut down after he posted a “disgusting” image of a cookie iced with a swastika.

The 13-year-old baked the cake during the Christmas holidays and posted a picture of it to Instagram this month with the hashtags “hitler” and “myfavouritecookie”.

The boy, a Year 8 student at a secondary school in Berwick, was called to a meeting with his principal and an official from the Department of Education to explain his actions.

The boy’s horrified parents immediately shut down their son’s social media accounts.

Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich, who also attended the meeting at the school last week, praised the school’s “swift and decisive action” over the incident.

The teenager reportedly expressed remorse over the post.

The boy who baked the cake posted this to his Instagram. His social media accounts have since been shut down. Picture: Supplied

The school, which the Leader has chosen not to name to protect the identity of the student, has also implemented after-school ‘education sessions’ for the student, where he will undertake a detailed project on the Holocaust and anti-Semitism over several weeks.

The school has also signed up to the Anti-Defamation Commission’s anti-racism program, Click Against Hate, which is free to schools throughout the Victoria.

Dr Abramovich said this was “a case study on how a school should respond” to anti-Semitic incidents.

“No turning a blind eye. No dismissing of such ugliness as ‘kids being kids’. No empty rhetoric about how this happened outside of school hours so it is outside our circle of responsibility,” he said.

“Rather, what we saw here is swift and decisive action, which included disciplinary measures and the parents’ involvement so as to back up the zero tolerance to racism that the school has assured me they are committed to.”

It comes after a 15-year-old Jewish boy was last year suspended from Brighton Secondary College after desperate attempts to stop anti-Semitic bullying where students taunted him with ‘Heil Hitler’ chants and swastikas.

The fed-up boy dragged one of his accused bullies to the principal’s office and demanded the school take action after the other student drew swastikas on his hand.

But the brave teen was instead handed a suspension for getting physical with his classmate, who he said wasn’t reprimanded.

The other student had reportedly told the boy to ‘get in my oven’ and would repeatedly chant ‘Heil Hitler’ at him.

A year earlier, a Jewish boy at Cheltenham Secondary College was forced to kiss the feet of a Muslim classmate, while a Prep student at Hawthorn West Primary was allegedly called a “Jewish cockroach” and repeatedly hounded in the school toilets by other students.

Dr Abramovich said everyone had a role to play in “pushing back” against the rise of religious and racial hate in schools.

“If we don’t want current and future Jewish students to suffer the same trauma endured by the students from Cheltenham Secondary College, Hawthorn West Primary and Brighton Secondary College then the attitude of teachers and principals, who often look the other way and are indifferent to the pain of Jewish students, must change,” he said.

The Education Department has been contacted for comment.

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