Jewish Children in Canada Outcasts of the Public School System That Will Not Protect Them

"He literally doesn't go to school anymore. He has absolutely no desire to be in school."

"I've pulled him out completely. He's got no desire to learn."

"He has no faith in any of the school[s], the systems or anything of that sort." 

"I was at my wits' end. I was like, 'If they're [police] not going to do anything, then goddammit, I'm doing something. [However], the only thing that I could do was put the kids through restorative justice."

"The fact that my son does not go to school anymore just tells you he's petrified. He doesn't want to go to school; he doesn't want to be around these kids. He knows he's just going to be bullied again."

"We could move, but why am I forced to move out of an area that I lived in for over 23 years? You want me to pick up and move because of what's going on with the demographics in my area?"

"Guess what. I'm staying here. It is my house." 

Aviva Rubin-Schneider, Halifax 

 

"Three youths were referred to the Restorative Justice process, which is led by Coverdale Justice Society."

"Restorative justice is tailored to each individual situation, but in some cases it could involve police and/or the victim attending meetings with the participant so that all involved can speak to how the incident affected each person and the community."

Halifax police spokesman Martin Cromwell 

 

"All schools in the Halifax Regional Centre for Education are committed to providing safe, welcoming and inclusive learning environments for students and staff."

"Antisemitism -- including the use of slurs or symbols of hate -- is unacceptable and addressed as discriminatory or racist behaviour under Nova Scotia's Provincial Code of Conduct."

"Behaviour of this nature is taken seriously and addressed consistently in accordance with policy."

Kelly Connors, spokesperson, Halifax Regional Centre for Education 

 

 

At age 14, a Halifax school student after undergoing years of harassment and antisemitic slurs, now pursues his school studies online, no longer willing to submit himself to more of the same and worse, by physically attending Park West School in Halifax. Where classmates called  him 'Jewseph' and 'Jewboy' and when passing him in the school hallways, executed the Nazi salute in his direction. Brought to the attention time and again of the school authorities, nothing was ever done to put a stop to the bullying antisemitism.

 

And then, things became even more dire for the boy following October 7, 2023, when Palestinian terrorists flooded into southern Israel, headed by thousands of Hamas operatives as well as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, to execute a barbaric sweep of Israeli farming communities, raping girls and women, shooting and stabbing people to death, immolating families sheltering in their safe rooms by setting fire to their homes, savagely torturing women, then abducting children, the elderly, men, women, and foreign farm workers.

 

This event spurred an immediate reaction among Palestinian-Canadians and other Muslim groups, when they assembled in large numbers at demonstrations in the streets of Canadian cities against Israel, defending Hamas's atrocities as a response to Israeli 'occupation', which constrains Palestinians from carrying out their incessant 'martyrdom' attacks on Jews in Israel, incited by their leadership as a 'struggle' against the 'occupiers', who convince Palestinian youth that there is no greater glory than to become a martyr.

 

From Palestinians encouraged to use any means at their disposal to kill Jews, to Muslim and leftist sympathizers in Canada taking up the challenge to harass, intimidate, and threaten Canadian Jews, moving on to firebomb and shoot up synagogues and Jewish schools while propagandizing Israel as 'genocidal' and 'apartheid', the world changed for Jews in Canada. And 14-year-old Joseph Rubin-Schneider was one of many victims. 

 

Wall/Instagram

Matters changed for the worse for the boy when in January of 2024 several of his fellow students assaulted him on school grounds, punching, kicking, throwing him to the ground while he was being name-called by watching students. "My son didn't throw a punch", his mother said later. The school authority continued to fail to provide the boy with a safe learning environment. He is now in therapy while conducting studies online through the public school system. 

 

When Aviva Rubin-Schneider contacted the Halifax Regional Police and their hate crime unit in 2023, a plainclothes police officer met with the principal and vice-principal of the Park West  elementary and middle school following which a police officer delivered a few lectures on racism, intolerance and hate crimes to students between grades 6 and 9. This intervention failed to produce a safe learning environment for her son; the harassment simply continued.  

"More antisemitic incidents were documented last year in physical spaces than the year before. These included street assaults, attacks on synagogues, targeted harassment of Jewish communities, and repeated harm to Jewish institutions."

"Antisemitism in Nova Scotia Schools is a concerning issue, and we get many complaints from students and parents every year."

Atlantic Jewish Council 

 Many Jewish-Canadians now wonder, as the country they were born in, where their parents were born and raised them has become unfamiliar, whether this is no longer their country in equal measure with all other Canadians. The house that Aviva Rubin-Schneider claims as her own, her neighbourhood, her city, her province and her country has been invaded by a culture, a social system, a religion and an ideology completely adverse to the values and social mores she grew up with and valued, trusted and loved. Leaving behind, beside, and before Canadian Jews the confrontational question: Is Canada still their 'house'? 

Bullying, Threatening Jewish Children in Toronto

"They told him, we need to kill you.They started shoving and kicking him. And he was really vulnerable and by himself in that situation. The vice-principal who was outside in the playground, she was standing probably far away, so she couldn't hear what was transpiring, but when it started to become physical, she went to defuse the situation."

"And when my son told her, 'Can I please share with you what happened? [she told him 'I don't have time for this'."

"We were at a bit of [a] loss, but that same evening, a parent knocked on our door saying, 'I've heard so-and-so happened from my child. I want to just make sure that  you're all OK'."

"They [the Faywood Arts-Based Curriculum School, North York, Toronto] need to do something. They're doing literally nothing. They say they're doing stuff but nobody knows what they're doing."

Adi Cohen, mother of four school-age children, Israeli doctor in Canada on fellowship

A community support walk was held earlier this week to allow the bullied boy to walk safely to school. Photo by Larry Maher

A visiting Israeli family of two parents, both doctors working temporarily in Toronto in the medical profession is unimpressed with the Toronto District School Board having taken no discernible action relating to the ongoing, serious and threatening antisemitism their two oldest children, in Grades 8 and 5 are experiencing. Their two other children, in Grade 3 and senior kindergarten have not yet suffered any of these worrisome indignities.

 

Repeated bullying suffered by the two older children predates the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, but since then the confrontations have escalated. Death threats have been uttered against both children. Three police reports were filed by the family, owing to the school's inaction in creating a safe environment for their Jewish students. Incidents serious enough to alarm other members of the community some of whose children had experienced similar bullying.

Their concerns resulted in a "community support walk" that took place one Friday morning a few days back, a symbolic move that sent a message that all is not well. There was one incident when the second oldest child in the Cohen family was accosted while his older brother was elsewhere. A group of students uttered death threats mocking that his older brother wasn't available to protect him. After the incident the older brother approached the group and a physical altercation ensued.

 

Hundreds of community members gathered to walk Eitan Cohen, 13, to his school – Faywood Arts-Based Curriculum School – in North York to ensure the Jewish boy didn't get bullied on Friday, May 17, 2024. Supplied

The Cohen parents went to the school to speak with the vice-principal and principal the following day when an investigation was launched concluding that "comments were made on both sides". When the school administration was pressed for details, Adi Cohen was informed her son had told the group to "go back to their homeland"; a clue that the group was comprised of Muslim youth. Her son, however denied that statement, correcting it that he had really said, "go to your room lunch".

"He has a pretty heavy [Israeli] accent. and they took the aggressors' words for what happened without even asking and the aggressors denied everything that happened." Following another meeting with parents and representatives of the school board the investigation was reopened. She was informed by another principal the second investigation found the incidents occurred just as her son described, yet she was left with no impression that the other students faced any consequences, as a result of privacy laws.

Citing another incident, the older boy was bullied on video that was shared on social media, where a substitute teacher failed to intervene. Her son felt provoked to action and attempted to snatch the phone from another student. "The school is doing nothing, the teacher was doing nothing, they just let it happen. At some point, he got so frustrated, he tried to physically take the phone away and then they wanted to suspend him for violence", she explained.

In yet another incident sticks, stones and a water bottle were thrown at her son as he walked to school. The boy has been warned by other students that they would "do to him what Hamas did to Israel". A WhatsApp community group organized a day of support walk for the two boys, sending out a flyer to garner support, reading: "Our community must act. If school can't keep our kids safe, we will." The flyer also read: "No megaphones, no flags, this is about our children's safety".

The visiting Israeli mother's activism inspired other families of other students at the school who are "terrified" to thank her for speaking out publicly and bringing attention to the situation where Muslim students are preying on Jewish students in a situation where those in authority appear to be sitting on their hands and ostensibly waiting for things to calm down; in the process of doing nothing, signalling that the threats and bullying can continue without disciplinary action being taken.

 

In Toronto, community members come to walk a boy to school whose family says he has faced ongoing antisemitic bullying, May 17, 2024.

"I do believe that he feels that he's not alone. And it gives him the courage and the strength to keep on standing up for himself and for others. [The walk, and support offered by other families is] very helpful."

"I just need this to stop. I need to know that my son is going to school and that he's safe and that he's been taken care of."

"And that I won't get a phone call from the hospital saying something has happened."