To ask you to help with a cover story for my Jewish child

[Aislyn]

My eldest is at secondary school and has suffered horrific racist bullying due to being identifiably Jewish. She never told anyone, but they guessed due to her appearance, and her saying Eastern European countries when asked 'where are you from?'

Unfortunately the school has been completely unhelpful, and refused to tackle this.

My second child is starting at second and has sen. They are at even higher risk of bullying. They have an appearance that would mean that they could be identified as Jewish, especially when citing Eastern European countries in response to the above question. Can anyone think of a cover story for my child?

(Yes, I have tried to get them a place at a Jewish school, but there is none available)

Jews maybe do come in all shapes, size and colours.

At the same time a specific shape, size and colour can be recognised as "highly probably jewish".

So you can't recognise all Jews by the looks, but you can suspect someone might be Jewish based on their looks - mostly facial features and colouring
Yes, even when they wear bog standar haircut and no tells in clothes.

There are some Jews in Greece, it is a small community though.

https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/about/communities/gr

This is horrendous- I’m so sorry your kids are going through this. I hope the idiots on here who are inciting this kind of anti semitism with their marches are hanging their heads in shame.

If this were me, I’d be looking to move out of London and maybe more countryside for a while whilst your kids are in school.

The fact your kids need a cover story to hide who they are is shameful and I’m embarrassed for this country.

That's the whole point. The kids asking the questions don't consider themselves British first and foremost. So they don't accept another "foreign looking" person identifying themselves as British. I - British born, Indian heritage, proud Brit - get this all the time from other people who look like me, but who don't identify as British the way I do; and who can't accept that my Indian heritage isn't my foremost concern and that I don't identify as "Indian", so persistently ask the "where are you really from" question until they get the answer they want.

People do ask about family background even if the children are born in the UK. Teachers actively seek this out too and ask children where their name is from or where their families are from. Then there is culture day...... these topics do come up.

OP, best case is a jewish school, second best case is catholic school. Alternatively, your dc can say my mum's English and my grandparents are from Albania, Slovenia, Malta perhaps.

Ashkhenazi Jews do have some features often in common despite some being in Poland,,some in Germany etc. But I agree the whole situation sounds odd. Unfortunately there's a lot of odd stuff on SM, to say the least. I'm sure that's fuelling this hatefulness.

This explains it well. The amount of whitesplaining on this thread 😏

Just because anti Semites used them as slurs historically doesn't mean they are slurs. It's like I was taught in school 'Jews are followers of a religion, not a race'. This was to stave of racism but ignores that Jews are an ethnic group & see themselves as such, & there's nothing wrong with that.

Well to complicate things further, my children are ethnically half Jewish - my husband isn’t Jewish. And they look like him. So while I look an awful lot like my mum and grandmother and great grandmother (all Ashkenazi Jews who as a culture were ethnically restricted enough to create their own diseases), my kids don’t look ‘Jewish’. They just look ‘not Scottish’. But we all get questions all the time - usually without any sort of horrible reason, but always with the assumption we’ll have an interesting answer.

Why does the well known world wide phenomenon of rising anti semitism sound “odd” to you when someone gives an example. Is it more you feel uncomfortable?

Not to mention the whole contingent of people who think only white people can be racist.

Horrible behavior,I'm sorry you've experienced that

I don't mean rising anti Semitism. I mean the situation where someone's being interrogated about being Jewish, saying they're from an Eastern European country is perceived as a clue etc. I'm Gen Z and I just find it hard to imagine teenagers in school being this obsessed and aggressive. But I believe OP because SM & groups like Palestine Action have stirred up significant anti Semitism.

Hopefully you’ll find a different child and a different school might mean a completely different experience.

Or just say Italy as someone’s gm did. If questioned they can say they don’t know much as parents born in London too and no one speaks Italian.

Surely you are not that naive. My 13 year old has learned about the Second World War at least 3 times in school now and can tell you chapter and verse about Jews in Europe and what happened to them. Also social media which they all watch has some very unpleasant things on it.

I can’t believe I’m reading this thread.
OP is being advised that child should not say they are from Israel. Can no one else see how appalling this is, is it 1937 all over again? Have we learnt nothing?
If I was OP and my child was being bullied for being Jewish and the school was doing nothing I would be making an urgent appointment with a solicitor.
I’m beginning not to recognise this country.

Insane. May I ask if this teacher is Muslim? I know many Muslims are not anti Semitic but there does seem to have been rising anti Semitism in this community.

OP, I am so so sorry that your children are experiencing this. I haven't read the whole thread so not sure what others have suggested, but perhaps your child can respond something such as oh, one side of my family come from Italy (or some other mediterannean country) but that was a few generations back so don't ask me for my grandmothers pasta recipe. But everyone says I take after that side of the family.

I do hope you sort out a better solution soon for your children who only deserve happiness. And please try and get them to have some positive Jewish experiences, (camp, weekend classes, youth clubs) if they aren't already.

Op I might be ignorant but I'd think if your kids say I was born in London but my parents are from Poland I'd assume they were RC.

I agree re WW2 : my school study of it focused mainly on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust rather than Eastern Europe as much, but I can see how that could be a factor. And definitely SM...

Yes, I've been fortunate in that I've experienced very little antisemitism, what I have often seems to involve teenagers saying things about ovens and gas chambers.

Holocaust education seems to have the opposite effect on some people.

Tbf my grandfather was Polish and my mother & I get our brown hair from him. About half of Poles aren't blonde. But I agree that this could have been a clue for these bullies.

This is 110% a school problem that needs to be stamped out. I’d want face to face meetings with the head until this behaviour stops. Then escalate in line with the school’s complaints procedures. Your child needs to be shown that you are their advocate and that you’ll fight for them.

If most had only one Polish parent & it was the father, that's more likely.. I think mothers are probably more likely to pass down language if married to a different nationality.

Poles whose parenta came more recently may be more likely to have 2 Polish parents.