Jewish Student Sues Over Penny on Desk Jibe
A New Jersey teen said he has been the victim of anti-Semitic abuse at his local high school.
The teen, a student at Hanover Park High School in East Hanover, N.J., over the past six months has been the target of three potentially anti-Semitic offenses, attorney Andrew T. Miltenberg, who is representing the student’s family, said. Earlier this month, a fellow student was “staring and smirking” at his client before leaving a penny on his desk and walking away, Miltenberg said. He described this bias incident as “subtle” to some, but “to those who are sensitive, not so subtle.”
Prior to that, a swastika and a profane message targeting the student were drawn in the school’s locker room, Hanover Park High School, Sgt. Jack Ambrose confirmed.
In May, Miltenberg’s client was involved in an altercation with another student in the school’s locker room. A video of the incident shows his client being punched repeatedly, before the fight appears to be broken up by other students. Miltenberg’s client also said his attacker called him a “f–ing Jew,” although this is unclear from the video.
“In a short period of time, we have three incidents directed at one young man,” said Miltenberg. “One was clearly anti-Semitic, the other more subtle, and one which was a real beating.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
