Telegraph: Revealed: Shocking scale of anti-Semitism in Britain’s schools

In one incident, primary school pupils were allegedly called ‘baby killers’ for singing in Hebrew

TELEGRAPH

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/04/revealed-shocking-scale-of-anti-semitism-in-britain-schools/

Revealed: Shocking scale of anti-Semitism in Britain’s schools

In one incident, primary school pupils were allegedly called ‘baby killers’ for singing in Hebrew

Patrick Sawer Senior News Reporter. Robert Mendick Chief Reporter

Published 04 April 2026

Two six-year-old Jewish pupils were allegedly called “baby killers” for singing in Hebrew during a cultural day.

It is just one of a string of examples of anti-Semitism in Britain’s schools uncovered by The Telegraph.

The children were left in tears after they had been allegedly subjected to heckling and abuse at the Church of England state primary school.

The alleged incident was one of a growing number of cases of alleged anti-Semitic insults and bullying aimed at Jewish schoolchildren in the wake of the Oct 7 attacks on Israel in 2023.

A dossier of examples obtained by The Telegraph highlights the concern in the Jewish community about their children’s safety at non-Hebrew schools.

In some cases, fellow pupils appear to blame their classmates for Israel’s military offensive in Gaza following the Hamas attacks that killed 1,200 Jews.

Researchers have found that Jewish parents have also grown concerned about the peddling of anti-Semitic stereotypes in textbooks and lessons.

Some teachers have taken to wearing pro-Palestine badges in the classroom, creating what parents claim is a hostile atmosphere for pupils of Jewish heritage.

Reported cases include swastikas being carved into school toilets, graffiti saying “kill Jews” daubed near school premises and Jewish pupils claiming to have been subjected to racist and anti-Semitic abuse during a football match.

The claims follow last month’s firebombing of a north London Jewish charity, which destroyed four ambulances.

Counter-terrorism police have made a series of arrests in connection with the attack on the Hatzola Northwest charity in Golders Green.

The Community Security Trust (CST), which monitors anti-Semitism in the UK, found that last year had the second-highest annual total ever recorded for anti-Jewish hate incidents, at 3,700 – up 4 per cent on the 3,556 incidents recorded in 2024.

Only 2023 had more incidents, with 4,298 after Hamas’s Oct 7 attacks and Israel’s military response.

Allies of the Jewish community say more has to be done urgently to tackle the spectre of anti-Semitism blighting the lives of children in Britain.

Isaac Zarfati, the executive director of Stand With Us UK, a charity that combats anti-Jewish racism at schools and universities, said: “The shameful explosion of anti-Jewish racism on university campuses has made headlines time and again, but we have been witnessing in real time how it is now creeping into schools and being used by children of all age groups.

“This is rapidly becoming a national scandal and it is essential that the Government starts getting a grip.”

London

In one case, a six-year-old Jewish girl was allegedly subjected to verbal abuse for singing in Hebrew.

The girl had been asked to read a poem or sing a song reflecting her culture, and she chose to sing an Israeli song with her friend, who was also Jewish.

Their parents said that during the performance, classmates had shouted “baby killers”, which reduced the children to tears.

The school, in London, subsequently called in the parents of the children who had shouted the insults to tell them that their behaviour had been unacceptable.

The mother of the girl, who is now eight, told The Telegraph: “She was really upset and also embarrassed because it took place in front of the whole school.

“I can only assume the children who shouted out ‘baby killers’, who were slightly older, picked their attitude up in the home or wider community. They are only children themselves.

“The parents of the child my daughter was singing with are Israeli and they were really upset because they thought they would be safe in the UK.”

The identities of those involved in the cases uncovered by The Telegraph have been obscured for security purposes.

In a separate alleged incident, the same six-year-old was taunted while playing fairies with a friend.

The child’s mother said that when her daughter said “let’s fly to Israel”, another pupil responded by asking “isn’t that where they kill babies?”

Her mother added: “The school was very good and immediately called in the parents to say it was completely unacceptable, but people seem to have normalised the abuse of Jews and to extend it to children is just shocking.”

In another alleged case, a 13-year-old girl was travelling on the school bus during her first term at a Hebrew school in north-west London, in November 2024, when a group of 11-year-olds from another school began banging on the windows, shouting abuse and filming the children inside while yelling “f--- Israel”.

The teenager’s mother still feels too scared to let her daughter travel to school independently and now collects her from the bus drop-off point.

Following the Hamas attacks on Israel, teachers advised the pupils of the school to take their uniform jackets off when outside the school grounds, over fears that the Hebrew lettering on the badge could make them targets.

Norwich

In a separate alleged incident, pupils from the north-west London Jewish school said they had been subjected to openly anti-Semitic insults from opposition players and spectators during a football match against another school in Norwich.

One of the parents, the father of a mixed-race Jewish pupil, claimed that his son had been called “‘N-word’ Jew” during the game in March this year, which he described as “deeply disturbing and traumatising”.

The father, who had attended the Jewish school in the 1980s, said he recalled being called “Yid” and “Jew” when leaving the school and had found it “extremely upsetting that more than 40 years later, similar abuse has been directed at my own son”.

Another parent told The Telegraph that her 15-year-old son had been left traumatised by the match abuse incident.

“The abuse was horrible. My son is still very upset and scared about what happened,” she said. “Schools need to take this issue seriously. They need to tackle it through education.

“It’s a huge issue because nobody else in this country suffers as a group like Jews at the moment. This bullying is so bad and obviously with the ambulances incident everyone is frightened.”

Norfolk Police said that following “a thorough and independent investigation”, it found no evidence to support claims of anti-Semitic chanting or behaviour and that, “without any evidence or independent verification”, it did not meet the evidential standards required to pursue criminal proceedings.

The school in question said: “The school and trust have cooperated fully and transparently throughout, providing all available evidence to support enquiries.

“We recognise that concerns were raised and have treated them with the utmost seriousness. Anti-Semitism and all forms of discrimination are completely unacceptable and have no place in our schools.”

Devon

A parent in Devon told researchers about a number of incidents at their child’s school involving alleged anti-Semitism.

One 13-year-old at the school allegedly performed a Nazi salute, saying “Jews shouldn’t have the same rights as others”.

The incident, which is alleged to have taken place last year, was reported to Devon and Cornwall Police, who spoke to the child.

Several parents at the same school claimed that the content and presentation of some lessons risked “promoting a hostile environment against Israel”, which they said could “easily translate into violence against Jewish people”.

Examples included pupils being shown images of Palestinians throwing stones at Israeli soldiers, with the teacher describing this as “fighting against an army committing genocide”.

One teacher who allegedly asked their class to name the capital of Israel told pupils that Jerusalem was not the right answer.

This was interpreted by some Jewish parents as expressing an endorsement of the Palestinian refusal to recognise the city as the capital of Israel, choosing instead to hold East Jerusalem as capital of any future Palestinian state.

One parent, who has a 13-year-old at the school, said: “This all goes towards creating a hostile environment towards Jewish children and we cannot turn a blind eye towards it.”

The school has launched an internal investigation into the allegations.

Epping

A mother in Epping, Essex, said she had withdrawn her 13-year-old daughter from her school in May last year, following a dispute over a teacher wearing pro-Palestinian badges following the Oct 7 attacks.

The woman claimed that after she had complained about the badges, which included the Palestinian watermelon symbol, the teacher began imposing “unfair” disciplinary measures on her child, including giving her detention on her birthday.

Leeds

There are also claims that some classroom textbooks are minimising or even eradicating historical Jewish connections with the land that now forms Israel.

One Year 7 teaching pack referred to Jesus as being born in Palestine, which researchers said was historically inaccurate.

UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), a legal lobby group, complained to Leeds Grammar School about its use of the Life At The Time Of Jesus slide pack, which is available in a number of schools.

The legal campaign group stated: “Referring to ‘Palestine’ retroactively imposes a modern political label on a territory that had no such identity at the time and implies the existence of an ancient and continuous region called ‘Palestine’, which is liable to mislead the children and contribute to the erasure of Jewish connection to the land.”

UKLFI added: “Describing the land as ‘Palestine’ prior to the Bar Kokhba revolt is not only historically inaccurate but has the compounding effect of suppressing Jewish national identity long before the Romans officially imposed this name on the province of Judea.

“It also feeds into recent efforts by anti-Israel activists to spread disinformation that ‘Jesus was Palestinian’, in an attempt to erase his Jewish origin, and consequently, the Jewish people’s historical presence in the Middle East.”

Leeds Grammar School, which has a dozen Jewish members of staff and around 90 Jewish pupils, said it was committed to fostering “an inclusive, respectful and culturally rich environment” for all students.

The school said it had also established “a range of practices to support Jewish pupils’ religious and cultural identity”, including regular Jewish assemblies and celebration of key festivals.

Responding to the complaint from UKLFI, a spokesman for the school said: “When we were made aware of a parent’s concern about a teaching resource, it was reviewed by subject specialists in our RS department.”

‘National scandal’

Some fear that The Telegraph’s revelations about alleged anti-Semitism in schools are just the “tip of the iceberg”.

Saqib Bhatti MP, the shadow education minister, said: “These distressing reports should worry us all. Our education system should be a safe space for all our children irrespective of their faith. As a society we must not accept any instance of racism and our Jewish children must be allowed to go to school free from anti-Semitism.

“I fear this is just the tip of the iceberg. Anti-Semitism has spread throughout our education system at an alarming rate. We must not allow Jewish children to be targeted for such horrendous abuse. The Education Secretary should make clear to all headteachers that enough is enough.”

There are also concerns that many schools do not have policies in place to deal with anti-Semitism.

Research by Safe To Learn, which works to combat anti-Semitism in schools, found that nearly half of schools did not acknowledge anti-Semitism as a specific form of racist discrimination within their safeguarding material.

This comes despite almost a quarter of Jewish parents having reported in 2024 that their children had faced anti-Semitism in or around school.

A spokesman for Safe To Learn said: “Anti-Jewish hatred is becoming a disturbing feature of life in UK schools. Jewish pupils are suffering from horrible abuse but too many teachers and headteachers do not recognise the problem or are ill-equipped to deal with it.

“Our research found that half of the schools in London do not even have a policy in place to deal with anti-Semitism. This is a shocking safeguarding failure that needs to be addressed immediately.”

Phillipson: This is not acceptable

Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, launched a review of anti-Semitism in schools and colleges in response to data that show classroom-related ‌incidents have doubled since before the Oct 7 attacks.

She stated: “The figures are stark and clear. Too many Jewish teachers who raised concerns felt that nothing was done. That is not acceptable.”

Responding to The Telegraph’s findings, Catherine McKinnell MP, a former Labour schools minister, said: “Anti-Semitism has no place in our schools, and these experiences are a painful reminder of how far we still have to go to eradicate it.

“Schools should be safe spaces for all children to grow, learn and thrive, yet to hear testimony from victims of anti-Jewish hatred at such a young age, is deeply distressing.

“I am pleased that the Government has commissioned an independent review into anti-Semitism in schools and colleges, but there is no time to waste – action must be taken now to reverse this sadly rising trend.”

/ end of Telegraph article.

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