Antisemitism, hate speech and harassment have no place in New Canaan Public Schools or the community, district leaders said last week after an article appeared in The New York Times detailing how the NCHS boys hockey team had been targeted in social media posts.
The approximately 10 posts from accounts associated with Fairfield Prep students “are offensive, harmful, and wholly unacceptable,” Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi and NCHS Principal Bill Egan said in a district-wide email sent Friday afternoon.
“We will never tolerate, condone, or accept hate speech of any kind, and we are taking appropriate steps to support the students and families affected,” they said in the email.
According to the NYT story, posts that went up before and after New Canaan beat Fairfield Prep 3-1 in a CIAC Division One game on March 23—notching the Rams’ first state title in 54 years, an achievement celebrated by the Board of Education—hate speech targeting some NCHS student-athletes appeared on Instagram, such as invoking “Jew Canaan.”
“About 10 posts were shared, with some reposted by multiple accounts, and several with misspellings,” the article said. “One showed a hockey player wearing a yarmulke and an ‘Israel’ jersey with a Star of David emoji over his face; the caption read ‘Netanyahu Cannan,’ a reference to the Israeli prime minister, and the Hebrew song ‘Hava Nagila’ played in the background.”
There also was a video simulating a sexual assault, the NYT article said.
A New Canaan hockey supporter screen-shotted some of the images and shared them with Fairfield Prep and the NYT, the article said.
Egan said in the article that he had received an apology from Fairfield Prep.
In the letter, Egan and Luizzi said, “As always, we will continue to place the well-being of our students at the center of our efforts. Please know that we are here to support anyone who is hurting or in need. In New Canaan, we do not worry alone. As we head into Spring Break, we wish all of our families peace, joy, and wonderful times together.”
The antisemitic attacks on NCHS students are unacceptable, full stop. My prayer today is that we will all examine how we can stand against this disgusting and abhorrent behavior, wherever and whenever we may encounter it. Kudos to our school leadership for supporting the students and families, but the work is not only theirs. We all need to model and champion respect for those of all faith traditions, and right now especially our Jewish friends and neighbors. Many years ago, Martin Niemoller wrote about the failure of Germans to oppose the Nazis until it was too late in the poem which many of us know – First they came for the Communists…
Then they came for the Socialists…
Then they came for the trade unionists…
Then they came for the Jews…
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
While Niemoller’s own history is problematic, there’s a powerful lesson in here for us to learn. Let us not turn our backs on this truly horrifying behavior but rather confront it.
I am a Jewish person who moved here about 15 years ago.
Without a doubt, this is one of the most welcoming communities one could hope to join. I am truly grateful for the wonderful sense of community my family has enjoyed here.
New Canaan, was famously singled out as a center of anti-Semitism in the 1947 film “A Gentleman’s Agreement” which won Best Picture starting Gregory Peck. Today Jews are more welcome here than Manhattan.
I will never forget the First Selectman taking the time after October 7th to show solidarity because it was emblematic of how the entire community rallied.
Thank you all.
I’m a lot more concerned by the other cavalier attitudes. “Win or lose we booze….” Fairfield Prep. has students from 14-18. If they are drinking they are breaking the law, making the sports a segway to unhealthy and potentially injurious activities. Clearly any racist online comments need to be subject to disciplinary actions, where they are breaking a lot of rules and need to have their privileges for activities online suspended.
Anti-Semitism has no place in New Canaan or anywhere else. But we must also be cognizant of the biggest anti-Semite of them all, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has single-handedly managed to alienate the majority of the entire world against Jews with his indiscriminate military actions against civilians and children in Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Iran. Hate is a 2-way street.
Sadly, yours is just a disgusting antisemitic post that perpetuates the same hate it purports to condemn.
While I loathe Netanyahu and his cohort of followers, he is not the root cause of antisemitism in our word. Most people didn’t even know his name before the October 7th attacks or even on October 8th when they came out in droves to support Hamas and denounce Israel’s right to exist, before Israel had even launched an attack in a war started, again, by a foreign opposition hell bent on the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of Jews.
Blaming Netanyahu for antisemitism ignores thousands of years of the same jew hating tropes a blood libels that Jews have suffered. It ignores posts of “Free Palestine” in response to Happy Hanukkah posts by Americans, thousands of miles from Israel and any war. It ignores Hezbollah attacks on synagogue nursery schools in Michigan, entirely unrelated to the ongoing war. It dismisses the slaying of Australian Jews celebrating their holiday by themselves on a public beach. It perpetuates the ignorance and hatred that serves as the basis for you to blame a single person for the pointless hate targeting millions, many of who don’t support him.
If you truly detest Jewish hatred and want to support your Jewish brothers and sisters, you’ll take the hateful rhetoric from your vocabulary. You are free to condemn Netanyahu for his actions and words. To scape goat him, a Jew, as the root cause of evil against Jews is ignorant of world history and common sense.
You condemn Netanyahu but say nothjng of the atrocities committed by Hamas, the intentional, face to face, raping and butchering of children and families far from any military targets. You ignore the leaflets dropped by the IDF on military targets entrenched in Gazan schools and hospitals, where Hamas uses its civilians as human shields, warning those sam
civilians to evacuate before attacks. I could overwhelm you with facts to question your rhetoric; facts you’ve likely heard before but have chosen to ignore, but, sadly, you probably don’t want to listen.
Go find a local rabbi to talk to. Open your eyes. Educate yourself about the truth before perpetuating that which you supposedly oppose.
Thanks all, this thread is closed.
Thank you Dr Luizzi and Principal Egan.
The problem is anit-semitism is endemic in our universities, politics and news media. The major issue is that perpretrators of this “hate” get De facto impunity (punishment exists on paper but isn’t applied in practice). In his Easter address yesterday Pope Leo XIV expressed his concerns by warning against the “globalization of indifference” to suffering and violence”.
Yes New Canaan has come a long way but is not innocent. I arrived in New Canaan in 1997. Throughout the years I witnessed abhorrent anti-semitism throughout “by specific individuals” in Town Hall, neighbors and law enforcement. My wife and I found a Swastika on our driveway (story published in the New Canaan Advertiser). When I ran for Town Council my middle school daughter found a bird on our front entrance deck with a severed head still bleeding (covered by the news media) . Zoning and Inland Wetlands rules were applied discriminately to my family as opposed to adjoining neighbors and their property. I was recently kept off a town board through the the false biased innuendo of a elected official, on our Legislative branch, which individual has a history of past questionable behavior towards other jewish elected officials in our town. In fact there was an article (New Canaan Advertiser) in the early 2000’s that New Canaan residents were upset that a menorah was on God’s Acre during the singing of Christmas Carols.
Just a couple years back a Fairfield University student and New Canaan resident defaced private property in the center of the business district with anti Isreali and Jewish themes. The student’s anti semetic social media postings were threatening. He was allowed to act with impunity. In another Fairfield community students defaced a park with Swastikas. The response from that community and police department was that they were teenagers and did not know any better. Really! I guess neither did the teenage Nazi Storm Troopers. When hateful biased rhetoric and acts go unpunished the result is further hateful acts.
The world, inclusive of a few Fairfield County residents still post on social media that the Holocaust never happened and that October 7th was a hoax. The same “Eyes Wide Shut” behavior lead to the extermination of millions in Nazi Germany.
Total non-combatant deaths under Nazi persecution reached around 11-17 million inclusive of Jews, Roma and Sinti, people with disabilities, political dissidents, Jehovah’s Witnessess, homosexuals and others targeted for racial, ideological, or behavorial reasons.
So yes New Canaan has come a long way. However biased hate must not be treated with impunity or a slap on the wrist. Perhaps expulsion from all Universities and a requirement to visit the Holocaust museum and Nazi Death camps is required here. Impunity and words do not work. Appropriate consequences for hateful behavior send a message.
America was formed and our Constitution based on Judeo-Christian ethics – the moral and ethical framework that emerged from Judaism and was further developed and spread through Christianity. It forms a foundational pillar of Western civilization’s moral philosophy, law, human rights concepts and social norms. We must bring back our Judeo-Christian ethics and as the Pope said, stop the indifference and hate.
Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope as Easter and Passover fell at the same time this year.