NYC students say Hitler jabs, death threats are coming from small group after Post reveals disturbing actions against Jewish teacher
Students at a Brooklyn public high school shaken by shocking reports of antisemitism say most of the problems come from a specific group of troublemakers who “take it too far.”
Bombshell allegations at Origins High School in Sheepshead Bay that surfaced over the weekend include claims from staffers that one student donned a Hitler mustache while a crew marched through the halls with Palestinian flags chanting “Death to Israel.”
“It’s only a handful of students,” a high school junior told The Post Monday, the first day back in class since the accusations emerged. “It’s disheartening and I understand they are trying to bring awareness, but why like this?”
Two students claimed the unruly group allegedly targets anyone and everyone they come across.
“Those kids are threatening every single one of the kids here, not just the Jewish [ones],” said one male student who claimed they had taunted black children with a racial slur as well.
“They’re just racist,” another student, a freshman girl, added. “They walk around in groups. You don’t want to mess with them.”
Another student — a 10th grader named Joshua — echoed this, saying he’d recently heard chants of “Free Palestine” in the public school’s hallways.
“I feel bad for the people who are Jewish,” Joshua told The Post. “I don’t know if there’s anything the teachers or principal can do. We have freedom of speech, too.”
Not everyone has noticed the alleged antisemitic acts, however — at least a dozen students interviewed by The Post hadn’t heard the alleged chants and weren’t aware of the antisemitism allegations outlined during a Sunday press conference.
Some advocates called for the removal of city education chancellor David Banks and Origins interim principal Dara Kammerman in the wake of allegations outlined in a Post report — including a teacher who said she was “scared to come to work every day.”
The teacher claimed she was called a “a dirty Jew” by a student who said he wished “she was killed” in the Holocaust.
The female freshman — who claimed to have seen the kid with the Hitler mustache — also said the school doesn’t discipline the unruly racists.
“That’s why they do it,” the freshman said.
The city Department of Education has said it will investigate the allegations, but noted there’s “currently no evidence that these claims are true.”
Speakers at Sunday’s rally accused school officials of gaslighting.
On Monday, a half-dozen NYPD officers were stationed outside the school during afternoon dismissal.
Meanwhile, Kobi Nachman, a 52-year-old Jewish man whose 14-year-old son goes to Origins, told The Post that the teenager had been harassed about his religion more than once.
“There’s a lot of racism,” Nachman said. “Since he came to this school [the other students] keep saying to him, ‘Hamas, Hamas, Hamas.’ They said to my son that he’s a Jew bastard.”
When he told his teachers, they said he was crazy, Nachman said.
“They didn’t want to listen, because 95% of the school here is free Hamas, free Palestine,” Nachman said, adding that his son is on the waiting list to transfer to another school.
Campus manager Michael Beaudry, 48, told The Post that he’d witnessed the antisemitism firsthand — and administrators were retaliating against him as a result.
But Beaudry, who’s worked in the school for nine years, has already hired an attorney and declined to get into specifics.
“I have a lawyer right now, so I can’t really say much more than that,” Beaudry said. “But I think the pictures and the stuff in the [earlier] articles speaks for itself.”
Some students stood by the school and leadership.
Barry Candle, a 17-year-old student, defended Kammerman, the principal, and said she hadn’t experienced any of the taunting.
“She’s actually a really good person, so I don’t think she should be fired,” she said, adding that the perceived antisemitism is just a rallying call to free Palestine.
“I don’t think what people are saying about her is true,” she continued. “It’s not as bad as the media makes it seem.”
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