The Simon Wiesenthal Center demanded that Norwegian authorities take immediate action against perpetrators of anti-Semitic hate crimes following the heinous hate crime on Monday, in which a 16-year-old Jewish student in Oslo was branded with a red-hot coin at a school barbecue.
According to Jewish-Danish website Israwhat.com, the perpetrator of the attack, an ethnic Norwegian student, pressed the hot coin into the back of the victim’s neck, resulting in visible burning. School officials did not contact the family after the incident.
This is not the first time the teenager has been the target of anti-Semitic abuse. In 2010, his mother told Norwegian Broadcasting that she feared for her son’s life after he received death threats, being called “Jewish Pig” and “Jewish Satan.” She said that school faculty had consistently failed to intervene.
“Just what else must take place before school authorities stand up for rights of a Jewish child in a Norwegian school?” asked Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center.
“We demand that authorities hold accountable the perpetrators of this hate crime and those in charge of educating Norway's school children offer a safe environment for every student-including Jewish kids,” Cooper added.
The only response to the fire branding at the barbecue was by a teacher, who told the Norwegian-born attacker, “You’re mad.” Despite the gravity of the fire branding and a photograph taken on a cell phone that showed the burns on the neck of the victim, the school did not contact the mother after the incident.
The boy’s father, an Israeli, returned to Israel due to the increasingly hostile and anti-Semitic atmosphere in Norway.