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Jewish middle school teacher in Wisconsin arrested for threatening students over swastika drawings
(JTA) – A Jewish teacher at a public middle school in Wisconsin was arrested last week for threatening his students with gun violence after discovering a piece of paper with swastikas in class.
David Schroeder was arrested on Friday and charged Monday with a felony count of making terrorist threats, according to the court record. Schroeder is a seventh-grade math teacher in Grafton, a town north of Milwaukee, and has been placed on leave.
A student in Schroeder’s class told local news outlets that Schroeder became angry after a student found a scrap of paper with swastikas on it. Earlier in the week, Schroeder had reportedly found a notebook with more of the Nazi symbols. The student said the teacher “went on a ramble about how that’s bad and that’s a disgrace to his people,” and “started mentioning the N-word.”
Soon, Schroeder reportedly started threatening his students, saying he owned 17 guns and was “not afraid to use them,” adding that “all Jews have guns.” He further said he would send his daughter to the students’ houses “with a baseball bat,” the student said. The teacher also allegedly threatened to “go scorched earth” on the students, and said, “I wish pain on all of you and your families.”
The school told law enforcement that Schroeder wrote a statement admitting to making the comments. He wrote that he had made the comments out of anger.
The incident represents an unusual reaction to swastikas being found in school settings, a relatively common experience in U.S. schools that often triggers intervention by local Jewish leaders or representatives of the Anti-Defamation League. The civil rights group documented 232 incidents of antisemitic vandalism in non-Jewish K-12 schools last year, up from 152 in 2021.
The Grafton police chief, Jeff Caponera, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that his department was investigating both Schroeder’s behavior and the swastika drawings that prompted it.
“The behavior on both sides is unacceptable and we need to make sure this doesn’t become a recurring pattern,” Caponera said. But he added that because the swastikas were not specifically directed at any individual, they “don’t represent a hate crime,” which limits how police can respond to the person who drew them.
Police have yet to determine who is responsible for the swastikas, but Grafton School District Superintendent Jeff Nelson suggested that they were the work of a student.
Nelson told JTA that the school is “continuing to work with the police to find the student or students responsible for drawing the swastika drawings.” He sent letters to families over the weekend informing them of the incident, notifying them of an investigation by the school and calling Schroeder’s behavior “inappropriate and unprofessional.” A separate joint letter from Nelson and Caponera said increased police presence would be placed at the school this week.
The criminal complaint against Schroeder added that he had already been under investigation for other “inappropriate behavior towards students,” and that the principal had previously decided not to renew his contract, although police did not have any further details about his past behavior.
Schroeder was released on Monday on a $10,000 bail posting. He was ordered to surrender all his firearms, stay at least 500 feet away from the school and refrain from contact with all district students except for his own children. His preliminary hearing is set for June 22.
Though Schroeder had reportedly told his students he owned 17 weapons, he turned over only 15 to the authorities, Caponera said.
Caponera added that his own son is Jewish, as is his son’s mother, and that he would likely have a strong reaction if he were to discover swastikas in a classroom.
“I take offense to that. And I understand where the teacher is coming from,” he said. “But at the end of the day I also understand that the teacher has the responsibility to act appropriately in situations like this.”
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The post Jewish middle school teacher in Wisconsin arrested for threatening students over swastika drawings appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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UK adopts sweeping measures against antisemitism in schools
(JTA) — The U.K. has adopted sweeping measures to combat antisemitism in English schools, prompting pushback from the country’s largest teachers’ union.
The move came after a new government-commissioned review found that three in five Jewish students reported experiencing antisemitism in English schools. The most common incidents were jokes, stereotypes and comments about Jewish people. About half of respondents who witnessed or experienced antisemitism said the incidents were not reported, most often because they did not think they would be taken seriously.
The government on Wednesday accepted 27 recommendations from the report, including dedicated antisemitism training for leaders and staff, improved recording of antisemitic incidents and moves to build a better understanding of Jewish life, identity and contemporary antisemitism.
The government commissioned the report following a spate of high-profile attacks on Jews in Britain, including an attack on a synagogue in Manchester last year that left two men dead.
The report’s author, Sir David Bell, the vice chancellor of the University of Sunderland and former chief inspector of schools in England, recommended addressing antisemitism distinctly from other forms of racism. He argued that antisemitism was a “uniquely complex” problem because of intertwined racial and religious dimensions, since Jewish identity can encompass both an ethnicity and a religion, along with expressions of prejudice that hold all Jews responsible for the actions of Israel.
The government will also encourage English schools to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. The definition is supported by many mainstream Jewish organizations and has been adopted by 47 countries, including the U.K., but critics say that it conflates some forms of antisemitism with criticism of Israel.
British Education Secretary Lucy Powell called Bell’s review a “generational moment” and said that “implementation is now my priority.”
However, the National Education Union, the largest union representing teachers, lecturers, teaching assistants and support staff in the United Kingdom and Europe, raised concerns on Wednesday about recommending the IHRA definition for schools. NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede said in a statement that the definition “risks deepening the problem rather than tackling it, and actively undermining efforts to confront antisemitism.”
“The IHRA’s contested framing risks blurring the line between antisemitism and legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and the genocide in Gaza, leaving teachers with uncertainty when they need clarity,” said Kebede. He cited a risk that “children who cannot critically explore issues through classroom discussion will instead seek their answers in online and unsafe groups.”
Kebede also encouraged Britain’s Department for Education to strengthen guidance on all forms of racism, not only antisemitism, saying that 65% of teachers report they have not received any antiracism training in the past year.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews, an umbrella organization for British Jewish communities, celebrated the antisemitism report and the government’s adoption of its proposed measures. The group specifically praised the report’s “clear recommendations that schools and local authorities follow government guidelines by adopting the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism as a tool to deepen understanding of contemporary antisemitism.”
“We remain concerned about undue external influence on schools driven by narrow political agendas, and tendentious materials seeping into schools and increasing disharmony, and we will continue to press for vigilance against this,” said the Board of Deputies.
The post UK adopts sweeping measures against antisemitism in schools appeared first on The Forward.
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Orthodox Jewish man stabbed in midtown Manhattan
(New York Jewish Week) — An Orthodox Jewish man is in stable condition after being stabbed on Wednesday evening in the Diamond District of midtown Manhattan. Police are investigating the attack as a possible hate crime.
Police told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incident as a possible antisemitic attack, and Manhattan Shomrim — the Jewish community watch group — has asked people to share footage as police search for the suspect. No arrests have been made.
The victim was identified by police as a 26-year-old man, and Orthodox Jewish outlet COLLive identified him as a resident of Crown Heights, the neighborhood that is home to the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement’s headquarters.
He was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition. Police said they were called at about 5:50 p.m. on Wednesday after the man was stabbed in the back with “an unknown sharp object” on 47th Street near Fifth Avenue. ABC7 reported that the victim told investigators he believed he was stabbed with a needle or syringe.
According to the Chabad website, which published an interview with the victim, he is a recently ordained Hasidic rabbi named Joseph, who commutes to Midtown each day to wrap tefillin with Jewish merchants. The attacker, Joseph told the website, was a woman who seemed to be following him prior to the stabbing.
The attack comes as Jewish New Yorkers have been targeted in more than half of the hate crimes committed in New York City this year, despite making up about 12% of the city’s population.
In July, an assailant stabbed two men on the Upper West Side, including one who was leaving a synagogue, while yelling “Allahu akbar,” and was charged with committing hate crimes.
Louis Keene contributed reporting.
The post Orthodox Jewish man stabbed in midtown Manhattan appeared first on The Forward.
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VIDEO: A Hasid gives us a tour of Morocco in Yiddish
דער ירושלימער יוטוב־שטערן וועלוול קירשנבוים האָט לעצטנס אַרויסגעשטעלט אַ ווידעאָ אויף ייִדיש פֿון אַ פּרעכטיקן וויזיט, וואָס ער האָט געמאַכט אין מאַראָקאָ. עס באַגלייט אים זײַן חבֿר אַבֿרהם פּרץ.
אינעם ווידעאָ זעט מען ווי קירשנבוים דאַוונט שחרית מיט די אָרטיקע ייִדן און באַזוכט אַ גוט אָפּגעהיטענעם בית־עולם, וווּ עס ליגן באַערדיקט גרויסע צדיקים ווי למשל הרבֿ חיים בן עתר (1696–1743), באַקאַנט ווי דער „אור החיים“. „מענטשן מיינען, אַז נאָר אין אייראָפּע זענען דאָ קבֿרים פֿון צדיקים!“ זאָגט קירשנבוים.
מיר זעען אַ גרויסע, שיינע שיל מיט אַ פֿײַנער אַרכיטעקטור אין קאַזאַבלאַנקאַ; דעם גרויסן אַראַבישן שוק, וווּ קירשנבוים קויפֿט זיך אײַן מלבושים פּונקט ווי די מאַראָקאַנער גייען אָנגעטאָן. ער באַוווּנדערט אויך די שיינע טיי־גלעזער און טשײַניקן, וואָס מע פֿאַרקויפֿט דאָרט, און באַקענט זיך מיט אַ ייִדישן סוחר וואָס האַנדלט מיט זילבער און גאָלד, פּונקט אַזוי ווי זײַן טאַטע און זיידע האָבן געטאָן פֿאַר דור־דורות.
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