UK: "I faced so much anti-Semitism at Reading School that I eventually felt I had no option but to leave"

Max Benwell writes in the Independent about his experiences in grammar school.

I faced so much anti-Semitism at Reading School that I eventually felt I had no option but to leave. I was only 15 or 16 at the time, and being the insecure teen that everyone is at that age, it was completely crushing. It was also quite confusing, because, to my best knowledge, I’m not actually Jewish. Although, of course, if I tried pointing that out I was accused of anti-Semitism. As well as constantly being called “Shylock” and “Jew” by various members of my year (there were around a dozen who took part, in varying degrees), I had money thrown at me as I made my way from one class to another. Once this even happened while I was walking through Reading town centre.

I was also told repeatedly not to eat bacon – or smoky bacon crisps. In a history lesson, someone shouted out that the biggest mistake Hitler made was that he didn’t kill all the Jews, because if he had I wouldn’t be sitting there with everyone.

After a while, so many people were joining in that I lost most of my friends. Although, I wasn’t the only person who faced such abuse. Aside from those who were also bullied, students used the n-word liberally and competed to tell the most racist jokes.

(...)

Aside from almost daily abuse, the most depressing part was that the perpetrators weren’t punished appropriately in my view for what was essentially hate-speech. Instead of being suspended or expelled, many stayed on for sixth form, while I left.