On Thursday, a girl’s basketball game between The Leffell School, a private Jewish school in Hartsdale, and Roosevelt High School, a public school in Yonkers, was canceled in the third quarter after players from Roosevelt hurled antisemitic slurs at their Jewish opponents.
According to The New York City Public Schools Alliance, a Roosevelt player said to one opponent, “I support Hamas, you f–-ing Jew.”
In an op-ed for The Lion’s Roar, a student-run newspaper at Leffell, senior player Robin Bosworth shared the details of the disgusting display by the Roosevelt players in her piece, “Antisemitism at the Girls Varsity Basketball Game.”
Bosworth writes,
Throughout the first half of our game against Roosevelt High School in Yonkers, there was a somewhat hostile environment, with substantially more jabs and comments thrown at the players on our team than what I have experienced in the past. Despite this, our team chose to let their aggressiveness fuel us going into the second half of the game, as we continued to play passionately.
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. Attacking a team because of their school’s religious association is never acceptable, but especially due to the current war in Israel and the world’s rise in antisemitism, this felt extremely personal to me and many members of my team. 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. At the end of a basketball game, it is customary to shake hands with every member of the opposing team, to signify that everything that happened during the game was in fact just a part of the game. Despite our conflicting feelings about this practice, every member of my team acted with respect and class and lined up to shake their hands. However, being forced to shake hands with and say “good game” to people who had expressed such hatred did not sit right with me afterwards. If a team shows blatant disrespect towards my team and our school community’s values, it should not be tolerated or forgotten immediately following the game.
Ultimately, Leffell’s head coach, John Tessitore, and his team decided to end the game.
Leffell’s head of school, Michael Kay, wrote in a letter to the school community, “Our team was playing on the road, and during the course of the game, a small number of players on the opposing team directed hurtful, antisemitic comments toward members of our team.”
According to The New York Post, about an hour into the game and after a timeout was called, Tessitore consulted with hi players and the referees.
The Roosevelt players are seen gathering and appear to exchange words from afar with the Leffell players. Security steps in between both teams and the refs make an announcement before both teams suddenly exchange handshakes and security escorts them off the court.
Roosevelt High School agreed to a voluntary forfeit, according to a spokesman for the Yonkers district.
Although Roosevelt principal Edward DeChent apologized for the disgusting behavior of his students, per the Post, and said “investigative steps” had been taken and “outlined a number of disciplinary consequences and educational responses,” a spokesman for the Yonkers Public Schools district appeared to downplay the antisemitic behavior.
“It has come to our attention that a student-athlete made a statement involving ‘free Palestine,’” the district said. “This incident was promptly addressed in line with our district’s policies and values.”
Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano shared his concerns about the incident on social media.
to convene a meeting of educational, civic and religious leaders to discuss this incident and come up with recommendations as to what steps we can take as a community to prevent anything like this from happening again.
— Mayor Mike Spano (@MayorMikeSpano) January 7, 2024
