'I Support Hamas, You F–king Jew': High School Basketball Game Canceled Due To Violent Antisemitism On The Court

Another week, another disgusting example of antisemitism in this country. This time, it comes in the form of a girls high school basketball game in Yonkers.

According to reports -- and by that I mean first-person accounts from players and coaches on the court -- the game in question was canceled in the third quarter when players on the Roosevelt high basketball team hurled antisemitic remarks at The Leffell School, a private Jewish school in Hartsdale.

“I support Hamas, you f–king Jew,” a Roosevelt player yelled at a Leffell opponent, according to The New York City Public Schools Alliance, a group of parents and teachers fighting antisemitism.

High school basketball game canceled due to extreme antisemitism

What are we doing here? Seriously. I truly don't get it. It's just not normal.

I played high school football and baseball, and I'll be honest, I never heard anything on that level. Sure, you hear things when you're in the trenches that you're never gonna repeat at the family dinner table that night, but it's usually pretty standard stuff.

Mom jokes, weight jokes, how ugly you are, how much you suck at said sport -- stuff like that. But this sort of thing? Come on. Gross.

And, of course, it gets worse. Senior Leffell player Robin Bosworth wrote an op-ed in the student newspaper the day after the game, and she paints a pretty embarrassing picture:

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.

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.

According to the New York Post, Lion’s head coach John Tessitore consulted with his squad and decided to end the game in the third quarter.

“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,” Michael Kay, Leffell’s head of school, wrote in a letter.

Kay later added that Roosevelt’s athletic director Kyle Calabro apologized and said “the follow-up would be swift and appropriate.”

Let's hope so.