Harassment by 12-year-old including jokes about gas chambers forces Jewish teacher to resign: report

A Massachusetts middle school teacher is resigning and moving out of town after he says a 12-year-old student barraged him with antisemitic harassment, The Berkshire Eagle reported.

Social studies teacher Morrison Robblee says the student at Nessacus Regional Middle School started harassing him after he made it known to students that he was Jewish. Now the unidentified 6th-grader is facing a misdemeanor charge of criminal harassment.

Robblee said the harassment started in February with jokes about the Holocaust, gas chambers and other things related to Nazi Germany -- all during class.

When Robblee came to class wearing a kippah – a cap that some observant Jews wear – the student made hateful comments, prompting Robblee to write him up for detention. A few days after the incident, the student handed him a drawing that showed Adolf Hitler standing over a dead Jewish person, with heading along the top: “Sorry, Jew" – and called the drawing an apology letter.

Even though the student was suspended and removed from Robblee's classroom, the harassment continued in the form of insults in the hallways and emails from the student.

Robblee was placed in administrative leave by the school after he made a face at the student in response to the harassment. He admitted to making the face and said he did it out of frustration. He was also accused of badmouthing the student to other students at the school -- an allegation that he denies. He resigned from the school in May, saying his concerns were not heard.

Read the full report over at The Berkshire Eagle.