Pine Bush, N.Y., School District Faces Accusations of Anti-Semitism

[dlwickham]

The swastikas, the students recalled, seemed to be everywhere: on walls, desks, lockers, textbooks, computer screens, a playground slide — even on a student’s face.

A picture of President Obama, with a swastika drawn on his forehead, remained on the wall of an eighth-grade social studies classroom for about a month after a student informed her teacher, the student said.

For some Jewish students in the Pine Bush Central School District in New York State, attending public school has been nothing short of a nightmare. They tell of hearing anti-Semitic epithets and nicknames, and horrific jokes about the Holocaust.

They have reported being pelted with coins, told to retrieve money thrown into garbage receptacles, shoved and even beaten. They say that on school buses in this rural part of the state, located about 90 minutes north of New York City and once home to a local Ku Klux Klan chapter president, students have chanted “white power” and made Nazi salutes with their arms.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/nyregion/swastikas-slurs-and-torment-in-towns-schools.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=1&

[awoke_in_2003]

1. All we need is an economic melt down...

and we will become 1930s Germany.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. Nope

Just the 1920's America - feels like open season on ALL minorities right now. The chilling thing - the little vicious s.o.b.s who learned it at home are getting away with it. They've all got emboldened - 'those people'.

And yes - I say that in the most demeaning vindictive way possible - 'those people' who do these things. Shoot an black woman in need in the back of her head to get a thrill or pick on a jewish child and 'laugh' about shooting jews -

It's all the same to me.

[JustAnotherGen]

2. No responses

After a half an hour? Here's a kick. I already gave it a rec.

This is blatant prejudice, hateful bigotry - nothing more and nothing less.

[icymist]

4. Give it time. It's a lengthy article.

I'm at a loss of words. Drive just 90 miles out of NYC and you would think you were in another country.

[bullwinkle428]

6. You go into the deep rural areas of any state in this country, and it's hard

to tell the difference amongst NY, Alabama, California, Utah, Oregon, Alaska, etc.

[JustAnotherGen]

9. I grew up in a small town outside of Rochester NY

The third largest city . . . it's not the entire state outside of NYC. Rochester is the land of the suffragist and the abolitionist and is proud of that history.

However - even having lived on upper 390 for close to 30 years (live in NJ now) - we knew there are parts of the Southern Tier you just avoid. And well - the 518s. The 518s and 607's are scary places in some cases . . . don't forget - it's mountains and rural farm land in between the North West and South East corners of the state.

[bullwinkle428]

5. Disgusting. A fish rots from the head down. Major house-cleaning required

from the superintendent on down.

[Archae]

7. Try going to a message board like "Lulz"

Vicious anti-Semitic and racist remarks are common.

Especially since the posters are pretty much anonymous.

[KamaAina]

8. Amazingly, that's not far from Kiryas Joel, an all-Jewish town

which actually got the state to create a new school district just for them, even though nearly all the kids go to gender-segregated religious schools. They didn't want to send the kids with disabilities, who are fairly numerous due to inbreeding in the tightly-knit community, to public school where the boys might see gurlz.

[cali]

10. whoa. appalling. I just read the article

anti-semitism is, alas, often met with indifference here at DU.

[Behind the Aegis]

11. yeah...check out the posts on Kristallnacht.

Is that indifference?

ETA: Oooops! I forgot links!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101678175

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024005568

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024005983

Sorry about that!

[cali]

14. I just checked out the first of your links, Aegis.

That ***** needs to be banned. I alerted. If something isn't done swiftly, I'll appeal to Skinner. He has no patience with this kind of revisionism and bigotry.

[Bonobo]

12. I grew up in NY being pelted with pennies and having swastikas on my locker.

It is not surprising to those of us who experienced it.

[Behind the Aegis]

13. 4th grade....sitting in the hallways during Christmas parties

See, it would have being "insulting" for me to be in a room celebrating the birth of someone my people killed.

5th grade: Classmate threatened to blow my face off with a shotgun because I killed Christ. Of course, I had no idea what that even meant until my dad told me.

Most recently, in Meta, I was called a "Jewess" and told to "go back to the showers."

Not surprising at all.

[cali]

15. omg. I can't imagine.

and that you were told to "go back to the showers" here at DU? Shocking.

I'm so sorry.

[Bonobo]

16. Yup, we got lots of "You killed Christ!" stuff.

Also the "showers".

Fights were constant. Tough Italian, Irish neighborhood.

It affected me pretty profoundly, growing up fighting all the time.

So I hear you, brother, I hear you well.

[phylny]

17. Wow, what a shame. I used to live in Goshen, twenty minutes or so from Pine Bush. It's rural, but

it's suburban, to be sure.

I grew up on Long Island, where in my experience and the experience of a friend was nothing like this.

I'm Christian, and had a conversation on Facebook with a friend who is Jewish. We recalled that we grew up knowing and accepting the differences between us as a general community. As a community/school district, we sang Christmas and Hanukkah songs, dated people of other religions, and went to each others' Bat/Bar Mitzvahs and confirmations.

This utopia existed in the 60s and 70s. It was like second nature, and no big deal to us.