The boy told his mother ‘you shouldn’t love me; I’m a worthless Jewish rodent’ following the incident.

This is the horrifying moment a Jewish schoolboy was made to kiss the shoes of fellow school boy in an anti-Semitic incident that has caused outrage.

The boy, 12, was told that if he did not do it he would be beaten up by nine other children in a park in Melbourne, Australia.

Following the incident, the boy told his mother: ”Mummy, you shouldn’t love me. I’m a worthless, Jewish rodent. I’m vermin.’

She said he was also called a ‘dirty Jew’ and ‘Jewish cockroach.’


The mother said: ‘I grew up with Holocaust survivors, I used to go to synagogue with my uncle who was a Holocaust survivor and those were the words, literally, he was taunted with when he was five.’



He was picked on by a group of other boys around a similar age and the victim’s mother has spoken to the parents of the boy whose feet he kissed, who she says is Muslim.

She told The Age: ‘We sat down, his parents, the two boys and myself, around the table and explained the velocity of [the bullying] and what it meant to us as parents as far as building bridges between Jews and Muslims in society and not creating division like that photo does.

However, when she reported the incident to the boys’ school she was told that because it did not happen on school grounds it was not their responsibility.

The mother said: ‘I took such offence with the Education Department, because there was nothing they did to protect my son at all, at any point in time – that’s what’s cut me up.’

She said that he had also been bullied in the bathroom at school but was told he should just use another bathroom instead.

‘They refused to accept there was anti-Semitic issue. ”It’s not anti-Semitism, it’s just bullying”. The principal said, ”I don’t want to make other students feel uncomfortable.”,’ the mother said.

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In another incident, a five-year-old boy was mocked so much for being circumcised that he wet himself rather than use the toilet.

The school said in a statement after the incident: ‘While school staff were not able to substantiate that any negative interactions were anti-Semitic in nature, on the basis of those investigations, school staff identified an incident that involved children laughing at [the boy].

‘This was not acceptable and would have been an unpleasant experience for [the boy]. I am sorry that this occurred.’

Chairman of Australia’s Anti-Defamation Commission Dr Dvir Abramovich told MailOnline: ‘This is stain on Victoria’s education system that will long endure. Bullying and harassment of Jewish students at public schools is a deeply embedded virus that is reaching pitch-fever and should alarm us all. We are gradually reaching a point of no return.

‘To think that in 2019 Jewish pupils are subjected to violence, verbal insults and taunts, bigoted jokes, social exclusion, demeaning text messages and malicious Facebook posts is heartbreaking.



‘The kids are shaken and traumatised. Too often, parents are concerned that the antisemitic abuse will escalate if they notify the school since their child will become even a bigger target.

‘The ADC stands ready and willing to work with the Victorian government to deal with this sad phenomenon.

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