London Teacher Accused of Blaming Jews for Oct. 7 Massacre

A Jewish family has transferred their nine-year-old son from a state primary school in North London to a Jewish educational institution following allegations that a teacher told the child that Jews were responsible for the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre in Israel. The parents reported the incident to the school administration, requesting training for staff on identifying and combating antisemitism, but claim they received no satisfactory response. The boy's father, who remained anonymous, told Ynet that after discussing the Hamas attack and the Nova music festival massacre with his son, the child relayed the conversation to his teacher. According to the boy, the teacher responded, "Actually, it's the opposite," which the father interpreted as the teacher implying Jews attacked Palestinians. He further stated the teacher referred to the Hamas terrorists as "freedom fighters." Following the encounter, the father met with the deputy headteacher, who reportedly took notes and promised to address the situation with the teacher. However, the father received no follow-up information despite repeated attempts to contact the school administration, including an email inquiring about the investigation and any measures taken. He also offered to help find organizations to conduct antisemitism training and suggested the teacher visit an exhibition about the Nova festival massacre in London to understand the events better. The father recounted the teacher's response was, "We cannot impose political views on staff," to which he retorted, "This is not politics. This is an event that went down in history. Innocent people were killed."

On the last day of the school year, the father approached the headteacher, who stated she was not involved and that her deputy would contact him. "As a parent, I was completely crushed," the father told the Jewish Chronicle. "We felt we had to take our son out of school, and we were desperate." The article notes this was not the first instance of hostility the boy faced due to his Jewish identity. The previous year, at age eight, he spoke positively about Israeli singer Yoval Raphael at Eurovision, prompting another student to shout "f*** Israel" and others to chant "Free Palestine."

The father stated these school experiences significantly impacted his son's emotional state, making his return to education difficult. The family enrolled him in a Jewish school at the start of the current academic year, and within weeks, they observed a marked improvement. "Every day when we pick him up from school, we see him smiling, talking, and full of energy," the father said. "He is gradually regaining the self-confidence he had completely lost." He added that the experience led him to lose faith in the non-Jewish education system and he would never send his son to a non-Jewish school again. The incident has drawn reactions from British Jewish organizations, with a representative from the Jewish Leadership Council emphasizing the need for the urgent publication of findings from an investigation into antisemitism in schools by Sir David Bell, commissioned by the UK's Department for Education.