NY: Antisemitic harassment cuts short high school basketball game

As the game progressed, the Roosevelt players got rougher and rougher with some intentionally injuring Leffell players.

By Vered Weiss World Israel News

Varsity female players from a private Jewish high school had to leave a basketball game after facing repeated antisemitic harassment from members of the home Yonkers team, as reported by The New York Post. 

Team members from The Leffell School, a private Jewish high school in Hartsdale had to be escorted off the court by security guards after verbal harassment gave way to physical violence.

From the beginning of the game, members of the Roosevelt High School team were hurling antisemitic verbal abuse at the varsity Leffell players, with one shouting, “I support Hamas, you f–king Jew.”

Following the game on Thursday, Leffell basketball senior team member Robin Bosworth wrote in an editorial in the school paper, The Lion’s Roar that there were “substantially more jabs and comments thrown at the players on our team than what I have experienced in the past.”

As the game progressed, the Roosevelt players got rougher and rougher with some intentionally injuring Leffell players.

Throughout the game, Yonkers team members kept saying “Free Palestine” and made overtly antisemitic remarks at the opposing team.

Bosworth wrote, “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.”

“Instead of responding to hatred with more of the same, we chose to separate ourselves from the situation and leave with dignity and pride in who we are and what we believe in,” she continued.

The head coach of the Leffell Lions John Tessitore decided to end the game and security guards escorted his team off the court.

In a letter, Michael Kay, Leffell’s head of the school wrote to the community. “Our team was playing on the road, and during the game, a small number of players on the opposing team directed hurtful, antisemitic comments toward members of our team.”

Kay reported that Kyle Calabro, athletic director of Roosevelt High apologized for the incident and said, “The follow-up would be swift and appropriate.”

AntisemitismNew York