California high school outrages Jewish community once again with latest anti-Semitism scandal.
By Algemeiner Staff
A California high school that has been plagued by anti-Semitic activity was in the spotlight again in Friday after its principal revealed that students had been subjected to another wave of offensive social media posts, including Holocaust denial, homophobic epithets and threats of rape.
In an email to parents earlier this week, David Sondheim — principal of Redwood High School in Marin County — said that the most recent social media posts “targeted our Jewish students and families with hateful messages including references to false claims the Holocaust never happened, rape and homophobia. The accounts also followed Jewish students and asked Jewish students to follow the accounts.”
The disclosure marks the second time this year that Redwood High School has been called out for anti-Semitism among its students.
In September, an Instagram account that named specific Jewish students in Marin was unearthed. The account, which has now been removed, was named “Redwood students organized (against) semitism” and was accompanied by an anti-Semitic caricature.
Tara Taupier — superintendent of the Tamalpais Union High School District — told the Northern Californian Jewish news outlet J-Weekly that it was not clear who was behind the latest outrages on social media, but that they had utilized the same images that appeared on the Instagram account.
“The perpetrator used the same name and profile image so there is a chance that it is the same person,” Taupier said. “We are still engaged with law enforcement making attempts to positively identify the perpetrator of the earlier social media accounts and posts.”
A school parent separately told the J-Weekly that she had learned of the hateful messages from a WhatsApp group of around 100 Marin families established after previous incidents of hate speech.
She said anti-Semitism had often gone unaddressed over the years, but that this occasion was startling.
“I think this incident is different, because they’re threatening to rape students,” she said.