All the children are Reich.
A Brooklyn high school has become a haven for Hitler-loving hooligans who terrorize Jewish teachers and classmates, the Post has learned.
On October 26, just three weeks after Hamas massacred 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 40 to 50 teenagers waved Palestinian flags and shouted “Death to Israel!” at Sheepshead. They marched through Bay Origins High School. And the staff were saying, “Kill the Jews!”
The hateful parade was shocking even for Origins, a school rife with prejudice and bullying, insiders told the Post.
“I live in fear of going to work every day,” said world history teacher Daniel Kaminsky.
According to interviews with multiple staff members and requests for the safe removal of Jewish students, recent hate incidents include:
- One student drew a mustache on his face to look like Hitler and banged on the classroom door. When someone opened the door, he clicked his heels and made the Nazi gesture of raising his arms, according to security camera footage.
- Managers discovered that three swastikas had been painted on teachers’ walls and other surfaces in one week.
- “I wish you had been killed,” the 10th grade student told Kaminski, 33, who is Jewish.
- Another student called her a “dirty Jew” and said she wished Hitler “beat more Jews,” including her.
- Students pasted a picture of the Palestinian flag and a note reading “Liberate Palestine” on the door of Kaminsky’s classroom. The scribbled note simply said, “Die.”
Teachers say the teenage perpetrators have so far received no serious discipline under interim assistant principal Dara Kammerman, who has given them protection to practice “restorative justice.” He said he has done little other than contact people.
“She is perpetuating an anti-Semitic environment and a school of hate,” said Michael Bewdry, campus manager for the Sheepshead Bay building that houses Origins and three other schools. “Students continue to do this because they know there will be no consequences.”
In one disturbing example in late January, a group of boys came into Kaminski’s classroom at the end of the day and cornered him, laughing.
“Mr. Kaminsky, do you like Hitler?” one asked.
“I was very surprised,” she said. “I didn’t respond, but everyone gave the Heil Hitler signal.”
Terrified, Kaminski immediately left the classroom.
Mr Bewdley said security camera footage showed one of the boys waving at his friend and causing her to follow him into the building.
Records show Kaminski immediately reported the harassment to the assistant principal, who determined the boys had done nothing wrong and declined to suspend them.
“We can’t do anything because the students claimed they were trying to have an ‘academic conversation,'” the official quoted her as saying.
Anti-Semitism at Origins High School has been worsening for several years, Kaminsky and Bewdley said.
At Kaminski’s request last March, Kammerman arranged for a group of students to visit the university. Jewish Heritage Museumthere was a new program to educate students about anti-Semitism and the Holocaust.
The museum, located in Battery Park City, first sent two female interns to Origins to help the teens prepare for what they would see.
Several boys made rude and appalling comments that nearly brought the young women to tears, according to emails to the museum and accounts from staff.
One teenager said he would have sex with a dead Jewish woman.
Another said: “They take money from dead bodies of Jews.”
Some made derisive comments such as, “Who cares about Jews?”
The museum canceled the visit.
When the Origins kids went to another group later that year, the donation box was stuffed with trash.
Some of the children were so rude that the museum skipped meeting with Holocaust survivors.
Approximately 40% of Origins students are Muslim. According to DOE statistics, 22% are Asian, 22% are black, 17% are Hispanic, and 32% are white.
The school has many students from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in Central Asia, as well as families from Middle Eastern countries such as Yemen, Egypt, and Palestine, who identify as white.
Several Jewish students have fled Origins since last year after being bullied because of their religion. During this period, the school’s enrollment dropped from 508 to 445.
Staff say there are currently no more than a dozen Jewish children attending Origins.
In one case, a Jewish second-grader returned from the bathroom to find three swastikas graffitied on his laptop charger, he wrote in a secure transfer request obtained by the newspaper.
“It’s hard for me to take history classes because I feel like I’m always being targeted,” the student wrote.
He also said he heard a classmate refer to Hitler as a “goat.”
“I feel very uncomfortable with this school, and the comments are only making it worse by the day.”
Kaminsky, who joined Origins in 2017 after working for four years on Long Island, said she only experienced anti-Semitism at DOE schools.
Ms. Kaminsky is pro-Israel, she said, but aims to be neutral in classes and cultural events. “As history teachers, we know how to discuss controversial and sensitive topics, considering all points of view, and encourage children to become critical thinkers.”
Although it is widely known among students that Kaminsky is Jewish, she says she does not emphasize it.
She said students routinely draw swastikas next to their names in class, carve Nazi symbols into their desks and scribble on bulletin boards.
The flag of Israel, one of about 200 countries around the world, that Kaminski had hung in his classroom was torn down in the spring of 2021.
A group of girls told her that it had been taken across the street and burned.
“I was yelled at, followed, and made fun of,” Kaminski said. “I’ve reported everything to the principal. I’ve gone to the school safety committee. I’ve told the union, the UFT. I’ve told the superintendent,” Brooklyn South High School Principal Michael Player said. Ta.
They offered little assistance.
“There was nothing that made me feel safe going to school,” she said.
“I was involved in after-school clubs and sports and Regents prep. I don’t want to stay in the building any longer than necessary right now.”
“It’s heartbreaking,” said a non-Jewish female student who graduated in June and is currently attending the State University of New York. “I love Ms. Kaminski. During my middle and high school years, she was one of my trusted teachers and helped me with anything I needed. She values her job. She’s trying. She’s working in a system that’s not supported.”
Jews are not the only targets of hatred.
That same week in October, three swastikas were scrawled on walls and other objects, and “KKK” was written in a black girl’s notebook. and the n-word used against other black girls, Bewdley reported.
“The LGBTQ community is subjected to ridicule and fear every day,” he said.
“One student who identifies as gay told me he was bullied to the point that he didn’t want to come to school anymore.”
When Mr Bewdley urged the young man to submit a statement about the abuse, the boy replied: “It’s not going anywhere, it’s a waste of time.”
During a meeting in November, a “mob” broke out when a gay teacher announced the creation of a new LGBTQ club, Bewdley said. “They started ripping things off the walls. They were shouting ‘Kill the motherfucker’ and ‘No gay shit’.”
A child threw something that hit the teacher in the head.
Teachers locked classroom doors during the commotion to protect other students and themselves.
“Schools are ticking time bombs,” said Bewdley, 48, a former police officer and father of three.
Bewdley, who is in charge of operations and safety at the Frank J. Macchiarola campus, said Kammerman failed to record many instances of violence and misconduct in the DOE’s incident reporting system.
The building also houses two charter schools and a DOE transfer school for older children who lack credits.
No unusual problems have occurred at other schools.
Bewdley filed a 15-count complaint against Kammerman with the City Schools Task Force.
One student claimed that the acting principal left the school building after the student collapsed from heart failure, without waiting for an ambulance or the frantic boy’s parents to arrive.
SCI has referred all complaints back to the DOE for internal processing, according to an SCI spokesperson.
But Mr. Kammerman, who became acting principal 14 months ago when John Banks was promoted to assistant superintendent, issued dozens of disciplinary warnings to Mr. Bewdley and Mr. Kaminsky in what he called retaliation.
The principal has accused both of them of various crimes, including insubordination for actions such as calling parents without permission, but neither has been formally charged.
Mr. Kaminsky and Mr. Bewdry asked City Council member Inna Vernikov and former Congressman Dov Hikind, founder of Americans Against Anti-Semitism, to intervene.
They contacted Mark Goldfeder, senior counsel at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law.
The center is preparing to file a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of Mr. Kaminski, Mr. Bewdley and possibly others, he said.
“Even in this time of heightened anti-Semitism, we are shocked by the level of depravity seen here and the regime’s callous and indefensible tolerance of it,” Goldfeder said. “Anti-Semitism, like all forms of hatred, is not intuitive. It has to be learned. Apparently it’s taught in Origins, but it’s never accepted.”
Vernikov said he reviewed dozens of complaints and spoke with teachers, parents and students.
“The horrors that the people who teach and attend this school talk about are incredible,” she said. “It has become abundantly clear that this school is a living hell for many people. If changes are not made soon, many will continue to suffer.”
“This type of hatred within our school system must end. The Jewish community is tired of empty words. We need action. We need results,” Hikind said. .
Vernikov and Hikind are scheduled to hold a press conference with Kaminski and Bewdry outside the school at 10:30 a.m. Sunday.
Kammerman did not respond to requests for comment.
