Principal of high school students who hurled abuse at Jewish students visiting Melbourne Museum breaks her silence
Abhorrent abuse was hurled at a group of Jewish primary school students from Mount Scopus Memorial College during an excursion to Melbourne Museum.
The year 5 students, aged between 10 and 11, were called "dirty Jews" by high school students, amid chants of 'free, free Palestine'.
The teenagers were from Gladstone Park Secondary College in Melbourne's outer northwest, the Herald Sun revealed.
Principal Veronica Hoy called out the behaviour from some of her teenage students as 'deeply traumatic and unacceptable'.
'The behaviour of a group of some of our students at Melbourne Museum was completely deplorable,' she told the Herald Sun.
'Racism has no place in or outside of the classroom.'
The incident outraged families of the young students, with one parent saying on social media that his son had been called a "dirty Jew", and labelled the act "pure, unadulterated antisemitism".
'Today, my 10-year-old son went on an excursion to the Melbourne Museum,' he said.
'What should have been a day of learning and culture turned into a terrifying experience when he and his classmates were targeted by high school students from a different school.
'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.
'This is not a political debate; this is pure, unadulterated antisemitism and hate.'
Ms Hoy will take responsibility for pursuing an investigation into what happened.
She added this incident 'does not represent our values as a school'.
'I will also be reviewing this incident with my leadership team as we develop a broader response to addressing racism in our school, in line with the Department of Education's new policy on this,' Ms Hoy said.
This is not the first time Mount Scopus has been the target of antisemitic abuse.
Last year the leading Jewish school was defaced with hateful graffiti inciting death upon Jews, with parents keeping their children at home out of fear.
The words 'Jew die' were daubed in black spray paint on the school's white fence.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry chief executive Alex Ryvchin criticised the high school students for bringing 'disgrace to themselves, their school and their country'.
'Where would Australian high school students learn this behaviour?' he said.
'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.'
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