According to Yaron Steinbuch writing the ‘New York Post’ back on 19th June 2023 there was a hurricane in a tea pot at Nessacus Regional Middle School in Dalton in Massachusetts.
We read how:
‘A Jewish middle school teacher in Massachusetts has resigned after facing antisemitic harassment by a 12-year-old student – who allegedly made Nazi jokes and sent him a drawing of Adolf Hitler.
Morrison Robblee, 25, who taught social studies at Nessacus Regional Middle School in Dalton, told the Berkshire Eagle that the sixth-grader began making the comments after the teacher let his students know he is Jewish in February.
The child is now facing a misdemeanor charge of criminal harassment.
When Robblee tried to quiet his students one day, the boy began spewing homophobic slurs, so the teacher removed him from class, Insider reported.
School officials later held a “restorative circle,” in which the student, Robblee and an administrator reflected on the incident.
“The student didn’t actually say anything during the meeting,” Robblee told Insider. “That probably should have cued me that this was not going to end.”
In April, things took a turn for the worse after the teacher showed up in class wearing a yarmulke, a skullcap worn by observant Jews, for Passover – prompting the student to make hateful comments about it, according to the news outlet.
A few days after being sent to detention, Robblee said the boy gave him sketch of Hitler standing over a dead person labeled “Jew,” surrounded by swastikas and canisters labeled “gas.”
News outlet Insider said it has viewed the sickening drawing, which also featured the words “Sorry Jew,” in what the student said was an apology letter.
“He really wanted to get his point home,” Robblee told the outlet about the student, who was eventually suspended and removed from the teacher’s class.
But he told Insider that the harassment continued in the hallways and that the boy made jokes about the Holocaust, including gas chambers. He said the student also emailed him insults about his teaching.
The boy, who has not been named because of his age, faces a misdemeanor charge of criminal harassment.
Robblee said he filed a complaint with his union in May, citing an unsafe work environment, and told the Central Berkshire Regional School District in a letter that the boy would “further be at risk of a deeper radicalization of hate, one which will lead to violence,” the Eagle reported.
“I am not bothered by the ignorant comments of a child,” Robblee reportedly wrote in a statement to be read at a meeting to end the boy’s suspension. “I am bothered that, without proper intervention, this hate will continue to fester.”
The district later placed Robblee on administrative leave, citing the student’s allegations that the teacher made a face at him in a hallway, according to The Eagle.
Robblee told Insider that he stuck his tongue out at the student in a moment of frustration after the boy swore at him.
The teacher also was accused of speaking about the student in front of other children, but he denies that allegation, the paper reported.
He said he decided to quit because he didn’t feel like administrators took his concerns seriously.
“I take the keys out of my pocket, slide ’em across the table, and say, ‘There’s absolutely no way I am coming back to work in your school,’” Robblee told The Eagle.Schools Superintendent Leslie Blake-Davis declined to discuss the incidents for confidentiality reasons, according to the outlet.
But she said the district handles incidents of hate or bias by first removing a student from a classroom for a due process probe while educational services are still provided.
The district then either introduces “accountable consequences,” such as detention or suspensions, or “restorative interventions,” such as anti-bias training, Blake-Davis told The Eagle.
If action is taken, parents are notified and the district will contact law enforcement if necessary, she added.
Blake-Davis said the district also seeks to introduce the No Place For Hate Club, a student-led initiative at Wahconah Regional High School, in the middle school.
“One of the things we found as a district that’s really empowering is to make sure we’re involving student voice and student leadership in this work that we do,” she said.The Dalton Police Department filed the charge against the student in Pittsfield Juvenile Court, where pending a show-cause hearing, the court clerk will determine whether the case should move forward.’ (1)
For the record this is some of what the 12-year-old middle school student sent to Robblee:
As always there is a different narrative indicated by the evidence than that which the jews are attempting to push, which is that this is straight up anti-Semitism and was completely unprovoked.
This is clear from the note which states:
‘Dear Mr Robblee
I personally hate u and u wein no cap man bun!
So is witches tellin a teacher
I don’t appreciate you. :)’
Now looking at this the issue that the student had Robblee isn’t per se his jewishness but rather Robblee’s behaviour in that he aggressively pushed his jewishness to his class in this nearly 95 percent White town in Massachusetts (2) which has no discernible jewish presence whatsoever with the closest jewish communities being in the nearby small city of Pittsfield with two small liberal synagogues (one Conservative and one Reform).
This then resulted in the student – who clearly isn’t the brightest or at least has poor reading/writing skills – reacting to Robblee’s unprovoked and aggressive promotion of his jewishness to his class by invoking Hitler in a personal war against Robblee’s behaviour. However, what is also interesting is the reference to ‘witches telling a teacher’ (the student might possibly have meant ‘bitches’ but ‘witches’ conveys a similar point) which suggests the student was ‘told on’ by female classmates to Robblee who then appears to have something to really upset the student who then has responded with this ‘anti-Semitic campaign’.
This sequence of events is even implied to be the case in Steinbuch’s account of what occurred in that Robblee was placed on administrative leave by the school after he began behaving inappropriately towards the student (‘making faces’ and one presumes deliberately winding up said student) and apparently behaving like something of a child to the student in return. Presumably so said student would react with more ‘anti-Semitism’ and allow Robblee to try to get him ‘expelled for anti-Semitism’.
This obviously didn’t work particularly well since it was Robblee who got into trouble and refused to be verbally reprimanded for poor workplace behaviour and then went crying to the authorities who promptly charged the student over the alleged ‘anti-Semitism’ showing both Robblee’s jewish privilege and also why anti-Semitism is a reaction to jewish behaviour not independent of it.
The fact this is beginning to happen with greater and greater frequency at schools – (3) particularly high schools as it happens – suggests that the meme about Generation Z – the ‘Zoomers’ – being ‘Generation Zyklon’ is not misplaced.
References
(1) https://nypost.com/2023/06/19/jewish-teacher-resigns-after-antisemitic-harassment-from-12-year-old-student/; alternatively see https://www.aol.com/teacher-quits-moving-town-sickening-171047154.html and https://www.thejc.com/news/jewish-teacher-resigns-after-student-made-nazi-jokes-and-sent-hitler-drawing-frafcych
(2) https://www.massachusetts-demographics.com/dalton-demographics
(3) For example, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/01/nyregion/pine-bush-ny-schools-anti-semitism.html; https://www.yahoo.com/news/elite-stuyvesant-hs-restricts-boys-190332476.html; https://apnews.com/general-news-528189a9601c4ef29227e0a91f87ee0c; https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/nyregion/racist-graffiti-swastikas-beacon-high-school.html