3 in 5 Jewish students experience antisemitism in English schools, review says

Three in five Jewish students in English schools say they have experienced antisemitism, and one in five of all students say they have witnessed it, a UK government-commissioned report finds.

The independent report, conducted by former British schools inspector Sir David Bell, and set to be released in full later today, finds that less than half of students believed that antisemitism would be dealt with if they reported it.

According to British media, the report will lay out 27 recommendations, which the UK government is expected to accept in full.

“I think what this review has demonstrated is that a general commitment to tackling racism or prejudice or hate has not properly identified antisemitism as a particular kind of hate. And certainly that’s one of the themes of this report,” Bell tells Sky News.

“We do need to name antisemitism as a particular kind of prejudice and hate, because I think if you don’t name it, you don’t actually know what you’re tackling or what you’re going to be able to do to respond to it,” he says.

Bell adds that teaching staff need guidance so that children can “debate topical and difficult issues without feeling that teachers are imposing their own views on students.”

He tells the BBC: “This is not just a report for Jewish children in Jewish schools. This is for all children and young people in all schools and colleges. We know that antisemitism crosses all boundaries.”

According to The Guardian, the recommendations include encouraging schools to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, and improving teaching about the Holocaust to ensure that antisemitism is shown as the central theme of the genocide.

Additionally, policies on the behavior of staff should ensure that antisemitism is unacceptable, the report says.

The BBC says that earlier this year, Bell said that the then-ongoing review found that the principals of some Jewish schools spent more hours dealing with security than with education.

Jonathan Frisher, a 17-year-old Jewish student from the north of England, says that he was bullied for being Jewish and that he was left on his own to deal with it, without support from the school.

“I was the only Jewish student at my school, and I experienced lots of antisemitic bullying. There were lots of comments around gas chambers, people telling me that I belonged in a gas chamber. And I also saw a wider culture in school of swastikas and Nazi salutes becoming quite normalized,” he says.

“And the burden was often left on me as a 12-year-old Jewish student to explain to my peers why this antisemitism was so wrong. And I really believed then, and I believe now, that this has to come from the government. Teachers have a role to play in tackling antisemitism. The responsibility is on them to tackle antisemitism.”