When my son was just eight years old, he came into school raving about the Israeli singer in the Eurovision Song Contest. Right away, one of his peers shouted “f*** Israel” in his face. And then two other friends started chanting “Free Palestine”. Daniel came home that night and asked me, “what is free Palestine?”
I tried to explain, and I told him those kids are just repeating what the parents say. It’s not their fault. However, little eight-year-old kids chanting “free Palestine” and “f*** Israel” is quite crazy when you think about it. The previous year, we were at his best school friend’s house to watch Eurovision. They were nice people, educated… then when it came to the Israeli singer Yuval Raphael performing, after everything she went through as a survivor of the Nova festival massacre on October 7, the little brother aged five said: “Don’t vote for her, she’s bad. Because they started a war.”
I didn’t tell Daniel about the horrific attack at Nova until he was nine, after I witnessed him playing a video game with characters dressed up as so-called “freedom fighters” slaughtering innocents. I put an instant end to his game and sat him down to explain.
The day after, when I picked him up from school he said: “You know what? I told my teacher about the Nova festival. But what she said was ‘actually it’s the opposite’.” His understanding was that she was saying that the Jews attacked the Palestinians, but she was actually totally denying the criminality of what Hamas did on that day – she was saying that it was deserved because they were “freedom fighters”. But I never got to find out what she meant, because the school would not even give me an answer.
That evening, I managed to find the deputy head, and Daniel came with me and explained everything in his own words, and they wrote it all down. The deputy head told me they would be addressing the situation with Daniel’s teacher but I never had anything back. I followed up with an email, but nothing. And then it was the end of school for the summer.
In the email, I asked what they would put in place at the school to tackle antisemitism and educate the teachers and I also offered to help direct them to the right people to be able to do this. I suggested sending Daniel’s teacher to the Nova exhibition, so she could understand what happened on that day, and they said: “Oh, we can’t force the staff into politics.” But I replied: “This is not politics. This is an event now marked in history. Innocent people have been murdered.”
Daniel and his work went downhill. His marks had been excellent on every subject. But this year we received the report and he had C-minus for everything, even art for which he had won a prize. His confidence went down to zero, his self-esteem became very low. He told us: “I’m stupid and I’ve got no friends.” As his parent, it’s been so difficult to see. But it all makes sense with the toxic environment from his teachers and peers.
We found out that his teacher for year five would have been someone who came to me raving about going to see Kneecap at the Forum. That was last year when they were crying “Free Palestine” at every single show.
It cemented my decision that this was not somewhere my son could attend any longer. As a parent I was devastated. We felt forced to move our son out of his school, and were desperate.
I was born in France, and in 1940 my granddad had to take my mum out of school because of antisemitism, because the Vichy government ostracised all the Jews. My mum missed all those years of school. 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.
I’ve dealt with antisemitism since I was a young kid in France, born 20-odd years after the Second World War. I found out I was Jewish much later because my parents hid it because they were scared. My mother said the word “Jew” out loud for the first time when she was 54 years old. I moved to England in the 1990s partly because my family were saved by the British and American soldiers, and I wouldn’t have to suffer antisemitism.
Things have deteriorated so badly here that we experience antisemitism even in primary school.
There was no way Daniel was going back. I was preparing to home-school him until we found somewhere appropriate. But we were lucky and found the perfect Jewish school with space. It’s such a different environment, and it makes us understand just how toxic things were.
We are seeing a massive improvement in our son. Coming back to school hasn’t been easy since something had broken deep in him – his loss of friendships and the fact he felt for the first time that adults couldn’t be trusted.
However, the new environment and the Jewish values of his new school have clearly been very beneficial for him. Every day at pick up, we see Daniel with a smile on his face, chatty and energised from his day. And he seems to be rebuilding the self confidence that he totally lost.
I could never again send him to a non-Jewish school. That’s finished. I lost all my trust and would always be cautious of what might come next.
Our experience has been disturbing, but it’s not surprising because of where we are at today. You see it year after year and it’s getting worse. And with my family experience, we know where things are going. We need to be at the right place, not the wrong place, when it’s too late.
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