A Jewish Grade 10 student had her hair burned by a neo-Nazi classmate in Charleswood, a residential community within the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The girl was not physically hurt in the attack and has since returned to school.
The altercation took place Nov. 18, 2011 in a hallway at Winnipeg’s Oak Park High School. After hurling anti-Semitic slurs at his 15-year-old female Jewish classmate, the boy approached her, pinned her against a row of lockers “pulled out a lighter and lit it against her hair,” said Winnipeg Police spokesman Constable Rob Carver.
The 15-year-old Manitoba youth who committed the assault reportedly has skinhead and neo-Nazi associations. The boy faces a charge of assault with a weapon, but the Manitoba Attorney General is investigating whether to pursue a hate-crime charge against the boy.
Oak Park officials first became aware of the alleged attack on Nov. 21, 2011 when the victim approached a school counselor. The male student involved was immediately suspended and has withdrawn from the school, said Lawrence Lussier, superintendent of Pembina Trails School Division, which oversees Oak Park High. "It's pretty shocking ... this is not something that happens regularly," said Mr. Lussier.
Police were contacted on Dec. 2, 2011 and launched an investigation, which led to a charge against the boy. The teen was released on a promise to appear. Constable Rob Carver noted the age of the accused is "particularly unusual" and called the allegations "disturbing."
"I have been doing policing for upwards of a couple of decades and don't think I've ever seen an incident like this," said Carver. "This is very young to be holding such ... hardened, racist views, and have a lot of violence associated with it." So far, “it doesn’t look like” his parents have any anti-Semitic sympathies of their own, said Const. Carver. “That’s not what investigators have seen,” he said.
The alleged attack has taken the community – both Jewish and non-Jewish – by surprise. “This is such a rare incident,” says Shelley Faintuch, the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg’s Community Affairs Director. “It’s a great shock. We hear about racial slurs and graffiti from time to time but not this kind of thing. Winnipeg is such a diverse city.” Faintuch reports that she has been contacted by a number of other Jewish students at the school since the incident.
Lawrence Lussier, the Superintendent of Pembina Trails School Division (where Oak Park is located), reported that the school has about 1,000 students, from a wide variety of backgrounds. “Winnipeg has received a lot of immigrants in recent years – and the Aboriginal population in the city is also growing,” he says. “Oak Park’s student body reflects that diversity.”
The male student, who allegedly committed the assault, is relatively new to the school division, Lussier says. He began attending Oak Park at the beginning of September. “He came from another school division,” Lussier reports. “We haven’t had much experience with him. We only learned about his neo-Nazi associations from media sources after the fact.
In the wake of the alleged attack, investigators found the accused’s public Facebook page contained posts of an “anti-Semitic” and “Nazi” nature. The boy had a picture of himself wearing a shirt with a slogan relating that he loves "haters." The teen's Facebook page is also filled with other vulgarities, including a derogatory term for homosexuals.
And he's being lauded by others online for the alleged attack. One of the boy's friends, a young woman, posted her support for him on his Facebook page. "What you did should have been applauded. But s-happens," she wrote, drawing an immediate response from some of his other Facebook friends.
While two people supported her views, two others responded negatively. One called the boy a "skinhead," while another insisted what he did should "not be applauded."
"None of it was true," wrote one girl of the alleged incident. "He told me he burned her hair as a joke. But like barely any like maybe a centimeter (sic) of her hair," said a second, adding "I think its (sic) so dumb that their (sic) pressing charges."
"HA we heard about that at Glenlawn," wrote a boy, "... apparently it was a hate crime because he said something that was anti-Semitic before doing it."
"HE DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING F**K," wrote girl No. 1. "I hate her (the alleged victim) because shes (sic) a bitch nothing more to it."
Lindor Reynolds writing for the Winnipeg Free Press drew attention to the degree to which Facebook has become the cultural town square, a collection of rumor, inanity, misinformation and occasional brilliance. It is popular with the young, free from the hardships of earning a living and more inclined to instantly share their likes, dislikes and YouTube videos.
Bernie Bellan also writing in the Winnipeg Free Press is troubled by the ease with which racist and other objectionable attitudes can be promulgated on social networking sites. This is an entirely different world in which we are living. A young person can be subjected to the worst form of social ostracism – through such sites as Facebook – to the point of absolute despair, at times leading to suicide.
Superintendent Lussier said: "We can't claim to police the Internet really. Whatever we can intervene in... are things that kids report to us normally, that are affecting the learning environment. Kids come to school scared or they're bothered by what someone said to them, or generally on some site."
Superintendent Lussier confirmed that a total of four students had received suspensions for behaviour related to the original incident. Besides the attacker, a second student has been suspended indefinitely while the police investigation continues. It's alleged the second boy was present when the girl's hair was scorched, although Lussier said his part in what happened is "not clear."
School officials have disciplined a third 15-year old boy for "one comment each on social media" after the Nov. 18 incident, said Lussier. The comments were "related to anti-Semitism."
Bernie Bellan of the Winnipeg Free Press spoke with a 16-year-old boy who attended Charleswood Junior High and who told him about an encounter he had with another boy.
According to this boy, during a discussion in Grade 9 class one day last year that centred around the Holocaust, another boy, who was German, said to him: “We put you people into the gas chambers.” In the Jewish boy’s account, he confronted the German boy over lunch hour. The incident was brought to the attention of the school principal, and the boy who made the remark was suspended for a short period, although supposedly some sort of sensitivity training for the boy who made the remark that was supposed to have been ordered was never followed through upon.
The boy who told Bellan about this incident claimed that Charleswood Junior High is “one of the most racist schools there is.” Of course, a statement like that has to be taken in context, but given the incident at Oak Park, it comes as a shock to think of Charleswood – of all places – as a source of anti-Semitism.
David Matas, a prominent Winnipeg lawyer who is senior honorary counsel for B'nai Brith, said the case shows the "durability of anti-Semitism." What elevates the exchanges to public debate is the allegation this was a hate crime. "The fact that it should arise in somebody so young shows that it's going to be projected into the future," said Matas. "... It just seems never to end."
“This is a horrible incident, but it is the exception rather than the rule,” said Shelley Faintuch, spokeswoman with The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, speaking to the Post on Sunday, adding that she was “not aware of any strong neo-Nazi movement within Winnipeg.”
Nevertheless, the city has seen a smattering of far-right extremism in recent years.
In 2008, a seven-year-old girl and two-year-old boy were taken from their parents by Manitoba Child Services after the girl was sent to school with Nazi slogans and symbols drawn onto her skin with a marker pen.
In the winter of 2009/2010, two members of the Aryan Guard were arrested in the Winnipeg area in connection with hate crimes committed in Calgary, including an attempted murder. The Aryan Guard, founded in 2006, is an Alberta-based neo-Nazi group with members primarily located in the city of Calgary.
In October 2011, a Manitoba murder trial dissolved into chaos when a key Crown witness began making anti-Semitic remarks towards a prominent Jewish defence lawyer. When the last lawyer, Martin Glazer, began questioning some of his evidence, he suggested that perhaps Beirnes had been "watching The Sopranos." "No, I don't watch that. I more watch German shows, ya know, watching Jews get killed," Beirnes replied.
Glazer questioned whether Beirnes was an anti-Semite. "No, I'm not sir. I'm a person with an opinion," Beirnes said. Glazer then asked if Beirnes had previously been a member of an Aryan gang while in prison. "At one point in time I was affiliated, yes," Beirnes confirmed. "That's a Nazi gang, you know that," Glazer replied. "So you're a Nazi, aren't you?" "No. I'm part German, yes. I'm Irish, French and German," Beirnes stated.
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba. Winnipeg is the eight-largest municipality in Canada, with a population of 694,668 inhabitants.
In 2004, Winnipeg had the fourth-highest overall crime rate among Canadian Census Metropolitan Areas, and the highest rate among centers with populations greater than 500,000. The crime rate was 50% higher than that of Calgary, and more than double that of Toronto. In 2010 the province topped all others in violent crime rates.
The Jewish population of Winnipeg is estimated at around 15,000, making it the largest Jewish community of Canada’s prairies provinces. The 2001 census recorded that followers of Judaism made up 2% of the population and Muslims made up 0.8%.
While Charleswood in the past has not been known as a Jewish neighborhood, in recent years younger Jewish families – especially immigrant families from South America and Israel – have been moving into the area.
Jews are no strangers to Winnipeg as the first permanent Jewish settlers arrived in about 1878. The anti-Jewish outbreaks in Russia during 1881 and 1882 caused about three hundred Jews to emigrate and settle in Winnipeg, most of whom worked upon the Canadian Pacific Railway. In 1898 and 1899 there was an influx from Romania, and from 1903 to 1905 there was a further considerable accession of settlers from Russia. The census of 1891 placed the Jewish population at 1,156.
Further Reading:
It is dangerous for a Jewish girl to go to school in Brussels these days
Hate emerges when the town of Hampstead in Quebec bans noise on Jewish High Holidays
Two reports document hatred in Canada
Anti-Semitic graffiti in Toronto
Five Jewish institutions targeted in Montreal vandalism attack
Canada: Nearly Two-Thirds of Religiously Categorized Crimes Target Jews
