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December 19, 2003
Steveston high defaced
Vandals destroy decorations with anti-Semitic graffiti.
KYLE BERGER REPORTER
Students at Steveston high school in Richmond had an unsettling
welcome when they arrived for their classes Dec. 9.
Smeared all over the front windows of the school, where Christmas
and Chanukah decorations had recently been painted, was anti-Semitic,
hateful and threatening graffiti.
Comments like "Jews are gay" and "Burn in the oven
Jews," along with swastikas, were drawn over seasonal decorations
on the front and back of the school.
"I was devastated to see that someone had written these things
all over our windows in a thick black felt, easy for anyone to read,"
said Shauna Nep, a Grade 12 student at Steveston. "I always
thought anti-Semitism was long gone, or maybe it was something that
happened in Europe or on campuses in the United States, but not
at my school."
Nep, who is also the president of Richmond's United Synagogue Youth
chapter, said she had always thought of her school, where at least
20 Jewish students study, as a friendly place where people were
comfortable expressing their religions.
"To be mutlicultural, they wrote 'Happy Chanukah' in one area
of the window and I was pleased to see that they were making an
effort to include everyone," she said. "I have never feared
being Jewish [at school], but today I was finally brought back into
reality."
Though she wanders the halls of her school with a little less comfort
these days, Nep said she will not stop expressing her Jewish pride.
"It scares me, but I will still wear my Magen David and IDF
[Israel Defence Forces] shirt with pride," she said.
In the past, Nep, along with some of her Jewish friends at Steveston,
had presented a project to their history class about the Holocaust.
They were suprised at how much their classmates didn't know.
"Even today [at school] people were asking, "What is that?
What is a swastika? What is the Holocaust?,' " she said.
The Bulletin made several efforts to get a comment from the
administrative staff at Steveston high school. As of press time,
no one had returned the Bulletin's calls.
Kyle Berger is a freelance journalist and graphic designer
living in Richmond.
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