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A Jewish father withdrew his nine-year-old son from a state primary school in north London after the boy reported that a teacher had blamed Jews for Hamas’ October 7 massacre, according to a Friday report by The Jewish Chronicle (JC).
After learning about Hamas’ massacre at the Nova music festival from his father, the boy raised the subject with his teacher the following day. According to his account, she responded, “Actually it’s the opposite.”
Speaking anonymously to the JC, the father said his son came away believing the teacher had portrayed Jews as the aggressors against Palestinians. The father said he understood her response as excusing Hamas’ atrocities, saying that she was “denying the criminality of what Hamas did on that day” and casting the terrorists as “freedom fighters.”
The father immediately arranged a meeting with the school’s deputy headteacher, who took notes and said the matter would be addressed. The father said he heard nothing back despite following up by phone and email. In his correspondence, he asked whether the school was considering antisemitism training for staff and offered to recommend organizations that could provide it. He also proposed that the teacher visit London’s Nova exhibition to better understand the October 7 massacre.
The father recalled being told, “We can’t force the staff into politics.”
“This is not politics,” he recalled replying. “This is an event now marked in history. Innocent people have been murdered.”
The boy had previously faced antisemitic harassment at the school. When he was eight, a classmate shouted “F*** Israel” in his face after he praised Israel’s Eurovision contestant, while two others chanted “Free Palestine.” According to his father, the incidents took a severe emotional toll, undermining the boy’s self-confidence. Since transferring to a Jewish school, however, he has gradually begun to recover.
A spokesperson for the Community Security Trust (CST) said, “Teachers should be trusted to educate children, not to introduce extremist ideas into the classroom.”
The decision echoed a painful episode in the French-born father’s family history. In 1940, his grandfather withdrew his mother from school because of antisemitism under the Vichy government. “I can’t shake this feeling that I’m here now with my nine-year-old son — I’ve got to take him out of his school in England because of antisemitism in 2026,” the father said. “Things have deteriorated so badly that we experience antisemitism even in primary school.”
“I could never again send him to a non-Jewish school,” he said. “That’s finished. I lost all my trust.”
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