For the third time this month, students at a Toronto public elementary school performed the Hitler salute in class, this time targeting a Jewish teacher in a Grade 6 classroom.
According to a statement issued by B’nai Brith Canada on Friday, the latest incident occurred on Thursday at Pleasant Public School in North York.
The victim, a substitute teacher who regularly works at the school, was approached in the classroom by two male students who performed the salute and kept their arms raised for a lengthy period despite the teacher’s request to stop.
“They knew exactly what they were doing,” the teacher told B’nai Brith. “I felt attacked. They kept their hands up for a long time. It was blatant and so obvious.”
The teacher said Pleasant Principal Brian Fong took swift action and summoned the two 12-year-old students to his office. He also questioned every student in the class about what happened.
On Friday, Fong was immersed in meetings deciding disciplinary action, and according to sources, consulting with Toronto District School Board (TDSB) officials.
“We commend Principal Fong and staff at Pleasant Public School for acting swiftly in response to this horrifying incident,” said Michael Mostyn, Chief Executive Officer of B’nai Brith Canada. “That being said, it is clear that antisemitism is a systemic problem within TDSB schools, and it will take considerably more effort from government, Jewish groups and the TDSB itself to root out the phenomenon and ensure that Jewish teachers and students can feel safe in their schools.”
Just last week, students at the Valley Park Middle School performed a Nazi salute in front of a Jewish teacher.
Two weeks before that incident, students performed a Nazi salute and depicted the swastika in front of students at the Charles H. Best Middle School, located in the Bathurst Manor neighborhood of North York, which has a significant Jewish population.
Several days after that incident, TDSB removed a teacher from the classroom who compared vaccine passports to the yellow Star of David that Jews were forced to wear in the Holocaust.
Canada has seen a rise in antisemitic incidents in recent years.
Last March, Statistics Canada released its annual survey of police-reported hate crimes which found that Jews have remained by far the most targeted religious group for hate crimes in Canada.
The Statistics Canada report found that there were 1,946 police-reported hate crimes in Canada in 2019, up 7 percent from a year earlier.
Last April, B’nai Brith Canada released its Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents, which found that antisemitic incidents in Canada have increased 18 percent since 2019.
The study affirms that Canadian Jews remain the most targeted religious group in the country.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)