Dozens protest anti-Semitic bullying at Danish school

JTA — Dozens of protesters outside a school near Copenhagen demonstrated against the anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish students.

The protesters at Saturday’s rally outside the Radmandsgades elementary school in Norrebro, a suburb north of Copenhagen, held up Israeli flags and signs reading “Today we are all Jews.”

The demonstration was in response to recent statements by Lise Egholm, a retiring headmistress of the Radmandsgades school, who said the bullying of Jewish children by Arab classmates forced her to advise Jewish parents not to enroll their children in the school.

“We have had some unfortunate incidents, which means that I have had to say to some parents it can be hard to have Jewish children in this area because there are many Palestinians,” Egholm told Dansk Radio.

Among the rally participants were members of a movement called Stop the Islamization of Denmark, according to Bashy Quraishy of the European Muslim Initiative for Social Cohesion, a Strasbourg-based NGO.

In a statement, Quraishy said the rally, which he attended, was met with a “counter demonstrat[ion]” by “anti-racist activists” who were stopped by police.