‘No friends left’: Jewish teen’s heartbreaking words after school kids targeted him with anti-Semitic abuse on Minecraft

By Clareese Packer and Samina Rakhshani
Read the article online at The Austrailan

A Jewish teenager told his parents “I have no friends left” after kids from his school hurled anti-Semitic abuse at him while they played the popular online game Minecraft, a hate inquiry was told.

Fifty-six witnesses were called in the Royal Commission on Anti-Semitism and Social Cohesion last week, sharing how “Nazi style slurs” are being hurled at children in schools that now look more like prisons due to increased security concerns in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

A 15-year-old Jewish boy, known only as ABB, detailed how he had been bullied since the end of 2024 and was targeted in a Minecraft chat group comprised of children from his school.

Someone had written “I hate the Jews” in the chat group at one stage, but his stomach turned “upside down” after someone commented “rabid filthy rotten gut-wrenching grotesque rabbi yamaka wearing bank owning iron doming Hashem following Jew” on another occasion.

“It made my stomach turn upside down, I really just had to step away from my computer for a little bit and then, when I came back, I think I just closed and logged off for the day,” the teen said.

The children continued with the abuse after the 15-year-old confronted them at school and “told them to stop because it was destroying my mental health”.

He didn’t tell his parents right away because he thought he could handle it, “but it just got out of hand”.

“I walked into their room and said I have no friends left,” the teen told the hearing.

His father, known as ABE, said he was “furious” when he found out about the abuse his son had been grappling with, with his mother, ABD, similarly “appalled”.

She said her stomach drops knowing how her son had “normalised” and had to “make his peace” with the ordeal.

“(He) accepted it as part of his school life,” she said.

The parents said the school handled the situation really well and held an investigation, with three of the children also apologising to ABB.

However if ABB is near the group too long at school they tell him to leave, the boy said.

“Every time I go up to them, because some of my other friends sit with them … if I stay there for a little too long, they’ll be like ‘get out of here’ or something like that,” ABB said.

ABB also told the hearing of how a group of Year 12s recently shouted something along the lines of “Hitler was right to kill them all”.

“I turned around expecting to see somebody staring at me or pointing at me but I found it was just a group of Year 12 boys who were just talking amongst themselves using it for general conversation,” he said.

Fireworks in the streets as Israel was “still counting its dead” in the wake of Hamas’ 2023 attack “set the tone” for the normalisation of Jewish hate in Australia, the leader of a Jewish organisation has told a hate inquiry.

Many pointed to the Sydney Opera House protest on October 9, 2023, as a critical turning point in the rise of Jewish hate; however, Dor Foundation Tahli Blicblau chief executive instead submitted that scenes at a Western Sydney protest the day prior were pivotal.

“The events of October 7 were described as a day of pride and courage,” Ms Blicblau told the royal commission on Monday.

“Cars were driving through Western Sydney setting off fireworks … that glorification of violence that night at a time when Israel was still counting its dead really set the tone for a permissive environment in which glorifying violence was accepted and permissible.”

Research from the Jewish body, which was established in 2024 to combat anti-Semitism, has revealed that most Australians can’t recognise anti-Semitic tropes.

Radical ideologies had converged in such a way that anti-Semitism was slipping into public discourse easier, Ms Blicblau said.

“They’re shrouded just enough in language, often of human rights, to be acceptable,” she said.

“Most Australians can’t recognise anti-Semitic tropes when they see them, so they’re presented with these hateful tropes and because they don’t recognise it as being anti-Semitic, it’s more likely to become normalised and accepted.”

Ms Blicblau also spoke to the role of online spaces in helping move anti-Semitism away from “shameful radical fringes”.

“The role of the internet and social media allows these hateful comments to reach millions of people within milliseconds, so in order to combat the new form (of anti-Semitism) … we need to operate there,” Ms Blicblau said.

Eight more witnesses are due to be called on Monday in the second week of hearings.

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