Sydney private school Cranbrook will undertake a detailed internal review following reports of anti-Semitic bullying and concerns raised from parents and alumni.
In a letter to parents on Thursday, Cranbrook school council president Jon North said he joined the headmaster in condemning “all forms of anti-social, bullying and discriminatory behaviour … including racist slurs and jokes”.
The Herald revealed last week that the Bellevue Hill boys’ school was dealing with at least three families who had complained about anti-Semitic behaviour, including a video shared among students of a boy in Cranbrook uniform performing a Nazi salute at school.
North said he had since received correspondence from several parents and alumni who are deeply concerned by this behaviour and have called upon the school to implement additional educational initiatives around anti-Semitism, discrimination and bullying.
He promised that, once the review was complete, the school council would report back to the community on the steps that would be taken.
North said the school “welcomed students from diverse ethnic backgrounds of all beliefs” and it was the school’s “moral duty to ensure that students are properly educated about all forms of racism, its genesis and the harm that it causes”.
The school council has invited NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Darren Bark to speak with members at its next meeting in October.
Read the article by Caitlin Fitzsimmons and Lucy Carroll in The Sydney Morning Herald.