Eight San Jose high school students formed a human swastika on their school’s football field in a horrifying display of antisemitism that has sent shockwaves through the Silicon Valley community.
The disturbing scene was photographed and shared in a since-deleted Wednesday social media post that featured an antisemitic 1939 quote from Adolf Hitler.
“If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe,” read what appeared to be an Instagram caption.
Maya Bronicki with the Bay Area Jewish Coalition told NBC Bay Area that a fellow student at Branham High School came across the shocking photo and alerted his parents and other families.
Branham High School announced Friday that an investigation has been launched. The eight students have been identified, but their names will not be revealed due to federal law.
“Our message to the community is clear: This was a disturbing and unacceptable act of antisemitism. Actions that target, demean, or threaten Jewish students have no place on our campuses,” school principal Beth Silbergeld said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times.
Silbergeld, who is Jewish, refers to herself as “Educator, conscious eater, mama, urban hippie, sneakerhead, NJ to CA,” according to her Instagram.
State Sen. Scott Wiener, who shared a photo of the human swastika on Facebook, applauded the school’s swift response.
“But we need to ask ourselves why these students believed it was ok to do this — not just the swastika but linking it to extermination of Jews due to ‘international financial Jews,’” the Democrat wrote.
Wiener’s post, however, elicited a wave of troubling responses in support of the eight students, including one that read: “This gives me faith in the next generation.”
The hateful act has been reported to San José Police Department, and the district also stated it will work with Anti-Defamation League, the Bay Area Jewish Coalition and the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Bay Area.
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