A Brooklyn lawmaker and Jewish advocates called on the city’s education chancellor and a Sheepshead Bay principal to be removed following shocking allegations of antisemitism at a public high school.
The call came for the removal of chancellor David Banks and Origins High School interim principal Dara Kammerman during a Sunday press conference after multiple staffers outlined a series of alarming incidents, including a claim that dozens of teens had marched through the hallways chanting “Death to Israel” and “Kill all the Jews” after the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks on Israel.
“This is a school where there are things happening every day and this has become a culture where this behavior is tolerated and accepted and the [Department of Education] is OK with it. This is now a pattern, a systemic problem,” said Councilwoman Inna Vernikov, a Republican.
The fiery claims, previously outlined by The Post, included one teacher lamenting that she was “scared to come to work every day” after she was called a “a dirty Jew” by a student who said he wished “she was killed” in the Holocaust.
In another alleged incident, a student donning a Hitler moustache was caught on security footage going from class to class doing the Sieg Heil salute, according to employees.
“This is a place where swastikas are painted on teachers’ offices, on walls, in classrooms, on boards, on students’ laptop,” she alleged. “This has become the norm at this school. The complaints fall on deaf ears. There’s been no discipline, which is why this behavior’s been encouraged.”
Dov Hikind, who served in the Assembly for decades as a Democrat before retiring in 2018 and switching his political affiliation to Republican last year, called it the “school from hell.”
Hilkind blasted students who allegedly distributed flyers last week for a “Vigil of the Martyrs of Palestine” at Brooklyn College
“Are those martyrs also the Hamas terrorist Nazis that butchered 1,200 Jews on Oct.7?” he asked. “I assume so.
“When a teacher says ‘I live in fear going to work everyday,’ should anyone live in fear of going to work?” Hilkind added. “Especially in a public school, a public high school where are tax dollars pay for everything.”
Advocates claim that no serious discipline has been doled out by interim principal Kammerman, who Hikind said issued a letter to parents allegedly telling them “not to worry” because she herself is Jewish.
The speakers called for her removal as well as the firing of Banks as DOE chancellor.
“Banks does nothing and he will do nothing,” said Hikind, as he citied a DOE statement from the front page article of Sunday’s Post.
Kammerman did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Post.
The DOE had said there was investigating the antisemitic allegations, adding there was “no evidence that these claims are true.”
In response to the statement, speakers at the rally accused the nation’s largest school district of “gaslighting” the Jewish community.
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Jesse O’Neill
