Seattle area public schools see spike in antisemitic incidents against students

On Thursday night, parents in the Bellevue, WA School District came to a school board meeting to discuss their concerns about children being bullied because they’re Jewish.

Parents told the board that the problems have spiked since Hamas terrorists massacred over 1,400 Israelis and more than 200 hostages on Oct 7.

Illan Lanz told the board, “I’m concerned about the safety of my two school children.”

Another parent, Ayelet Winer, said her kids have been bullied, called names, and have seen “Nazi symbols drawn on schoolbooks.”

“My kids, who came from a Jewish Israeli background, have been subjected to repeated discriminatory harassment. It reached a point where my kids were too afraid to go to school due to this hostile environment and they had to stay home.”

She told KOMO News, that her daughter stayed home from school and when she was home “…the harassing kids were not even called to the principal's office to talk about what happened. So from their perspective, they didn’t even do anything wrong.”

She added, that she has filed formal complaints with the district, but was told that it takes 30 days to investigate, noting, “That’s the problem with the school because they don’t recognize that is antisemitism or discriminatory harassment for the kids.”

One parent told KIRO 7 that parents from the Israeli and Jewish communities wanted to speak up but were afraid they would be retaliated against. She told the outlet that, at Highland Middle School, children were assaulted by other students who hit them with notebooks covered with swastikas.

One father told the outlet, “The Jewish community is feeling unsafe. The school district must ensure safety for all our students.”

Complicating matters is that the district banned police, known as school resource officers, from its campuses in response to the George Floyd riots in the state in 2020.

According to KOMO, there have also been issues in the Lake Washington School District.

Over the past week, 5 Jewish institutions in nearby Seattle, including 4 synagogues, received letters containing white powder, leading to an FBI investigation.