A suburban New York City girl’s high school basketball game was stopped in the third quarter after the visiting squad was subjected to a series of antisemitic slurs.
The incident occurred on the evening of Dec. 4 in Yonkers during a non-league varsity matchup between Roosevelt High School, a public school, and the Leffell School, a private Jewish day school in Hartsdale, N.Y.
“I support Hamas, you f**king Jew,” a Roosevelt player barked at a Leffell opponent, according to the New York City Public Schools Alliance, a group of parents and teachers fighting antisemitism.
The Jewish players were eventually escorted off the court by security after a barrage of antisemitic slurs was fired their way.
Senior Leffell player Robin Bosworth wrote about the incident in an op-ed published in the student newspaper:
“However, all of that changed in the third quarter. Members of our team started to get injured from the other team’s physical style of play. At the end of the quarter, players on the opposing team started shouting ‘Free Palestine’ and other antisemitic slurs and curses at us,” Bosworth wrote.
“I have played a sport every athletic season throughout my high school career, and I have never experienced this kind of hatred directed at one of my teams before,” the op-ed continued.
“Instead of responding to hatred with more of the same, we chose to separate ourselves from the situation and leave with dignity and pride in who we are and what we believe in.”
While Roosevelt’s athletic director and principal have since apologized for the incident and pledged to take disciplinary action, a spokesman for the Yonkers Public Schools appeared to downplay the antisemitic acts.
“It has come to our attention that a student-athlete made a statement involving ‘free Palestine,’” the district said, as quoted by the New York Post. “This incident was promptly addressed in line with our district’s policies and values.”
