The brief chant erupted from the New Jersey Transit train car crammed with raging white teens: “Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!”
A few years ago, I boarded the northbound New Jersey Transit’s Coast Line train at Red Bank, about five miles west of the Atlantic shore, 50 miles south of Manhattan. No seats, so I had to stand in the middle area between cars. A group of police officers also boarded at Red Bank and entered the car. I understood they were searching for booze and drunken students headed for a concert up the line.
After a few minutes, I heard the Nazi salute echoing from mostly male voices. Did these kids know that many of their grandparents probably risked their lives to stop the Nazis? I subsequently inquired of New Jersey Transit what that was all about. They had no answers.
I doubted if their chant was meant as a statement about Jews, but rather a curious style of defiance of the police presence. Last week, I couldn’t help wondering if any of them attended a nearby high school where students – and even teachers – frequently displayed anti-Semitic attitudes, as a Jewish student who identified herself as Paige discovered during two tortuous years.
As The New York Times reported, Paige spotted other students doodling swastikas and reading Mein Kampf (Hitler’s autobiography) during free periods, and she heard several students calling the SAT teacher an “obnoxious Jew.”
On her first two days as a freshman, two teachers laughed when pronouncing a student’s last name, Guiffre, as Jew-Frey.
One teacher remarked, “I wouldn’t want a last name like that,” and the same teacher would later recommend Mein Kampf as a great book.
An anti-Semitic photo displayed in a group chat in 2018 prompted an investigation by the state attorney general, which last October found probable cause that Paige fell victim to discrimination by the school and the school district based on her religion.
And two weeks ago, Paige filed a federal lawsuit accusing the district and faculty of discrimination, according to the Times. In the photo, the words “I h8 Jews” were etched in the sand and stretched over 30 feet, and a teenager in the photo lounged on his side above the words, as he smiled with his head propped up in his hand.
The boy in the photo, which was taken on a junior class trip, texted, “Yearbook cover.” One girl responded that she had already sent the photo to the faculty adviser, adding, “Its gonna be great.”
In today’s world, I would not expect to hear anything this brazen in Munich or Berlin, much less in America.
Not to sound naïve, but I recognize that people think and talk this way in our country and in other ostensibly civilized nations, but we are dealing with scale here. This conduct was extensive within the school, the Marine Academy of Science and Technology, in the seaside borough of Highlands in Monmouth County, population 621,000. Gov. Phil Murphy, who lives a few miles from the school in adjacent Middletown Township near the scenic Navasink River, proclaimed of an unrelated incident that “any instance of anti-Semitism is abhorrent.”
Monmouth’s estimated Jewish population of 73,000 is among the largest in New Jersey, a healthy mix of the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform streams. The Jewish community is long established in Monmouth and probably growing.
What’s mostly troubling about the school is their obsession with Jews. Especially, what is a teacher who admires Hitler doing in the employ of a public school? This is creepy.
The school administration did respond to this incident, but lacked control over the general environment, according to the Times article.
Where do they get these attitudes about Jews? No doubt many readers have suggestions. I will not begin to speculate.
Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal could not explain it, saying, “When we have incidents of bias and hate in our schools, a lot of the time they are met with just a slap on the wrist, and a promise not to do it again. I don’t think that’s appropriate. More often than not, it is symptomatic of something greater happening in that school or that broader community.”
Paige’s response to the experience was painful and predictable: “The anger consumed me and I didn’t know what to do. I knew I didn’t belong there.”
Didn’t belong there? That’s where we must dispute her take. She did belong there. The school is part of the public educational system, paid for by her parents, her neighbors and, for its part, the entire Jewish community.
The two male students responsible for the photo texted an apology to the group chat. “There are no excuses for our behavior and we are not anti-Semitic,” they wrote.
They hate Jews, and they are not anti-Semitic. Isn’t hatred of Jews the definition of anti-Semitism?
There is more to the Times story. Mostly, it is about people close to the offenders who continue to lie and rationalize.
The lone exception is a student who claimed on social media that he was a member of the Hitler Youth. That I believe. I wondered if he was on the same train that I had boarded and chanted “Sieg Heil” with the rest of his Hitler Youth chapter.
Republished from San Diego Jewish World