DOE Downplays Widespread Hate Against Jews in Public Schools

By Yehudit Garmaise

After students at Origins High School in Sheepshead Bay sent two Jewish teachers vile, hateful, and threatening emails and posted online many calls for violence against the Jewish people, one Jewish history teacher hired 24/7 security to protect herself and her husband, both of whom live in Nassau County.

“I am very fearful,” said Origins history teacher Danielle Kaminsky, who not only was called out by name in the email and posts but has also received antisemitic threats at work in the past.

Jewish parents also report that their children have been harassed and threatened about their religion many times.

After Michael Beaudry, who has served as Origin’s campus manager for nine years, reported that he was an eyewitness to a group of students who taunt and bully Jewish students and teachers, other school administrators retaliated against him, Beaudry, who is now speaking to an attorney shared.

“A lot of people are refusing to speak up,” said Kaminsky, who also expressed a complicity of silence on the part of the school. “I have to live in fear for reporting the truth.

When NYC’s First Deputy Schools Chancellor Dan Weisberg was asked whether “discrimination was going unchecked at NYC’s public schools” at Mayor Adam’s weekly press conference yesterday, Weisberg tried to whitewash the sickening display of hate.

“The cause of combating antisemitism is not served by people exaggerating or putting out false claims,” said Weisberg, who disputed the New York Post’s claim that Origin students were “rampaging through the hallway, chanting antisemitic slogans.

After Weisberg said clearly, “We can find no evidence of that, none, zero, including from educators who were in the hallways on that day,” Nolan Hicks a New York Post reporter, called Weisberg on how he was downplaying the displays of hate against Jews.

“The New York Post story on Origins High School was based on interviews with multiple staffers, several of whom went on the record, and a copy of a student's transfer safety request, which was quoted in the story,” Hicks said. “And yet, you said there's no evidence to back the story. What do you mean? 

“The history teacher who fears going to work was quoted in the story on the record.” 

“I don’t recall him saying there was no evidence to the Origins story,” said Mayor Adams to a room full of confused reporters.

“[Weisberg] said of the students running and trampling throughout the hallways and that there were riots and things of that magnitude and scale,” said Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams Isom. “So, I believe that the story was embellished to a degree.

“We admit that there were some problems within the school, just not on the magnitude or scale in which they were depicted.” 

The accusations of mobs of students rioting through hallways likely hearkens back to November 20, 2023, when hundreds of “protesting” students at Hillcrest High School in Queens ran through the halls to threaten and harass a Jewish teacher who had to barricade herself in her office before she had to be escorted out of the building by police for her safety.

A week before the teacher was bullied in school and her photo was posted online as a “supporter of Israel,” students at the same school attacked a uniformed school safety officer, NYPD said at the time.

Although the huge mob of students who seemed bent on hurting their Jewish teacher received some sort of discipline, they were not expelled. 

The current antisemitic climate in NYC has forced Jews to considerably step up safety measures in shuls and other public buildings. 

In addition, a large proportion of frum Jews avoid public transportation for fear of senseless and baseless harassment and assault.

While all the City Hall officials were quick to point out a spike in discomfort among all minorities right now, no one mentioned how vastly disproportionately to other groups Jews are targeted for hate crimes in New York City.

For instance, in February 17, Jews were attacked, while one Muslim was attacked, the NYPD reported. In February 2023, 13 Jews in NYC were targeted for hate crimes, while zero Muslims were attacked. 

“We're not going to hide the numbers,” said Mayor Adams, who said he would not downplay hateful incidents.

But isn't that exactly what Weisberg is doing as he denies the severity of what happened at Origins High School  only yesterday?