My Son's School Tried to Buy Our Silence

Antisemitism is exploding in this country. If educators do not have sufficient skills, training and policies to handle it, it means only bad things for kids like mine

- ANDREW GOLDBERG

I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT HURT more: The antisemitism directed at our seventh-grade son or Our public school administration's attempts to silence us about what happened to him.

Both seared like a brand.

As a documentary filmmaker and journalist, much of my work has been reporting on the worst of humanity.

My late mother named me after the civil rights worker Andrew Goodman, who was killed by racists in Mississippi. It was her way of telling me to at least try to be part of the solution.

One thing I've covered for years is antisemitism. I'd considered myself lucky because, until recently, it never came in any large dose for me or my family.

I live in Westport, Connecticut, with my wife and three children. We moved here because it has a reasonably large Jewish population and well-regarded public schools. All was well until things changed dramatically for my son last year.

It started with a run of taunts against him in sixth grade. Then in seventh grade came a repeated, daily effort to kick him off the lunch table. "Vote him off!" was chanted. The insults and digs grew. Each day he came home more despondent.

It got worse, progressing from general bullying to targeted antisemitism. One student, whom my son considered a friend, invited my son to sign up for his "camp" which had "great showers"-"Camp Auschwitz." He said another Jewish classmate of theirs had already signed up.

My son, who is just 12, found this concerning and upsetting, but this was a new friend, and he hoped this interaction was not indicative of anything more.

Later, the same boy was at our house with my son watching the satirical show South Park. In one of the episodes they saw, a character dressed as Hitler shouts:

"We must exterminate the Jews!" This boy then proceeded to say, "We must exterminate the Jews!" to my son on a regular basis at school.