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Girls basketball coach fired at NY school where players shouted antisemitic slurs at Jewish opponents
(New York Jewish Week) — A public high school in New York has fired its varsity girl’s basketball coach after players on its team uttered antisemitic slurs during a game against a Jewish day school.
A student has also been dismissed from the team at Roosevelt High School in Yonkers following the incident during a game against the Leffell School, a Jewish school in nearby Hartsdale, on Thursday.
Yonkers Public Schools and the city’s mayor, Mike Spano, announced the penalties in a statement Sunday in which they said they “sincerely apologize” and called the antisemitic epithets “painful and offensive.” They said an investigation is underway, noting that additional players may be disciplined and that the district would embark on counseling and training in response to the incident.
“Collectively, we do not and will not tolerate hate speech of any kind from our students and community,” the statement said. “The antisemitic rhetoric reportedly made against the student athletes of The Leffell School are abhorrent, inappropriate and not in line with the values we set forth for our young people.”
The incident comes as Jewish high schoolers in the New York area and beyond have grappled with reports of rising antisemitism since Hamas’ invasion of Israel on Oct. 7 and the subsequent war in Gaza. School districts, parents groups and local officials have taken steps to address what they describe as a hostile atmosphere for Jewish students. In the months prior to Oct. 7, multiple high schools had seen displays of antisemitism on the athletic field.
The atmosphere at Thursday’s game grew hostile early, according to Robin Bosworth, a member of Leffell’s team. Bosworth, a senior, wrote in the student newspaper that players on Roosevelt’s team were unusually aggressive during the game, leading to injuries on Leffell’s squad. She added that they shouted “Free Palestine” and hurled antisemitic slurs at the Leffell players.
According to multiple accounts, including a letter from the town supervisor in Greenburgh, New York, to New York’s top education authorities calling for changes to student-athletes discipline rules, one Roosevelt player called a Leffell player a “f—ing Jew.”
“Attacking a team because of their school’s religious association is never acceptable, but especially due to the current war in Israel and the world’s rise in antisemitism, this felt extremely personal to me and many members of my team,” Bosworth wrote. “I have played a sport every athletic season throughout my high school career, and I have never experienced this kind of hatred directed at one of my teams before.”
Bosworth wrote that Leffell’s team decided to end the game early. Roosevelt has forfeited the match, according to the New York Post. Neither the player from Roosevelt High School nor the coach who were dismissed have been identified by the school as of Monday morning. The school did not return the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s request for comment.
“Antisemitism at any level is unacceptable, as is racism of any sort. It’s even more disturbing when it occurs among our young people,” Spano posted on social media on Saturday, adding that he will convene a discussion of the incident among local educational, civic and religious leaders.
In an email sent to the Leffell community Friday afternoon, head of school Michael Kay wrote that Roosevelt High School’s athletic director contacted the Leffell School’s director of athletics to apologize and assure them both that any followup would be “swift and appropriate.” Kay also spoke with Roosevelt’s principal about the players or school leadership meeting in person.
He wrote that he was “incredibly proud” of how Leffell’s players dealt with the incident.
“The players conducted themselves with midot (ethical values) and grace, and they thoughtfully processed and debriefed the incident,” Kay wrote. “Importantly, I would also like to commend the response of my colleagues in the administration of the other school involved.”
An activist group of Jewish parents in New York City called attention to the incident, saying that it offered further evidence that city officials to take a stronger stance against antisemitism in local schools. The Yonkers school, like Leffell located in Westchester County north of New York City, is not part of the city school system.
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The post Girls basketball coach fired at NY school where players shouted antisemitic slurs at Jewish opponents appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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