Anti-Semitic graffiti a sign steep learning curve remains

In the wake of three separate incidents of anti-Semitic graffiti in Connecticut schools, the director of the state’s branch of the Anti Defamation League says the community’s response is critical to help prevent it from happening again.

According to Steve Ginsburg, director of the ADL’s Connecticut regional office, representatives from Darien, Westport and Hamden schools have reached out to the organization, which aims to fight bigotry and anti-Semitism.

In the past week, anti-Semitic graffiti has been discovered at Hamden High School, Middlesex Middle School in Darien, and Staples High School in Westport.

“We’re encouraged by community and school leadership that they are teaching about these issues, talking about how these symbols and words can really hurt people,” Ginsburg said. “We really support school leadership through programs we have that they can do themselves. Or we go in and do programs with schools.”

Those programs offered by the ADL have names like, “Truth about Hate,” and “No Place for Hate,” and seek to educate students on the impact of anti-Semitism and change the culture of a school.

“The Darien Board of Education stands with the superintendent, the district, and our whole school community in rejecting symbols of hate and bigotry in any form,” Darien board chairwoman Tara Ochman said in a statement Monday. “Incidents such as these reaffirm the crucial goal of educating children on the atrocities of the past, in order to help ensure they are not repeated in the future.”

In a message to parents last week, Middlesex Middle School Principal Shelley Somers said she organized an assembly with the ADL to discuss issues of diversity, name-calling and bullying, to increase student awareness to the effects of bullying and related incidents. Somers said it also provided a forum for students to share their own experiences.

“The ADL has also provided me with a lesson plan and activities discussing hate symbols, and antiSemitism, which I have presented to the Advisory Committee for immediate implementation,” Somers wrote.

Those lessons come in addition to those about the Holocaust and genocide, now required in high school as part of a state law, proposed by former state Sen. Toni Boucher and co-sponsored by state Sen. Tony Hwang, of Fairfield, that was passed by the legislature in 2018. A 2017 bill, also championed by Hwang and Boucher, made punishments more harsh for those convicted of hate crimes.

“I was very saddened that this was occurring once again in some of our towns,” Boucher said. “In time, I think the education mandate will have a positive impact. By teaching students about this then they understand why it’s important to never let this happen again and be tolerant to other people.”

Boucher said it took more than 10 years for her to secure enough support for the legislation. It was only amid a recent nationwide increase in the number of reported incidents of anti-Semitism that legislators rallied around the bill.

The ADL reports a precipitous rise in the number of anti-Semitic complaints nationwide from 1,267 in 2016 to 1,986 in 2017. The total dipped slightly last year to 1,879. The ADL reported 39 anti-Semitic incidents in Connecticut in 2018, down from 49 in 2017 and up from 36 in 2016.

“Three in a week like this, in schools, this is unusual,” Ginsburg said. “Not that it hasn’t happened before. In Connecticut, and nationwide over the past several years, we have seen a trend toward more than we did in the decades before.”

For each of the three districts, as well as many others statewide, anti-Semitic incidents have been recurring in recent years. Between 2016 and 2018, there were five anti-Semitic incidents reported in Westport, according to ADL data. During the same period, there were two anti-Semitic incidents reported in Darien and one in Hamden. Each has worked in the past with the ADL. According to Ginsburg, the incident itself is less important than a district’s response.

“The measure of that school, or that community, is not what happened there, but how they respond to it, and what they did to try to prepare people and prevent it from happening,” Ginsburg said.

Ginsburg also cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the perpetrators. Often, Ginsburg said, students are not channeling a white supremacist ideology. More commonly, they are trying to get a rise out of classmates or teachers and do not realize the broader significance.

“In the event that these investigations do lead to someone who did it and we find the culprit, I think it’s important, assuming the person learns they did something wrong and regrets it, that communities be welcoming with their forgiveness of those people,” Ginsburg said. “There’s a big difference between a white supremacist and an eighth-grader who’s dealing with some challenges.”

justin.papp@scni.com; @justinjpapp1; 203-842-2586