Photo depicts teens in clothing simulating the KKK and some in blackface and ‘afros’ enacting mock lynching. Photo: Mizbala
A group of Israeli high school boys dressed as members of the Ku Klux Klan and others in black face make up to stage a mock lynching for a class party for the Jewish holiday of Purim.
Photographs of over a dozen teens from Harel High School in Mevasseret Zion, a cushy suburb west of Jerusalem, first surfaced a few days after the holiday, which functionally serves as Israel’s Halloween. In the photos some of the students are dressed in white robes and armed with a large wooden cross, while three others are in black face make up and afro-style wigs and kneeling as if their arms are shackled. The Israeli media outlet Mizbala screen grabbed the images from Facebook, which was then circulated on social media, creating a firestorm of backlash.
A day later Israel’s Channel 2 news followed up, and the school’s principal said she found nothing inappropriate about the youths’ dressing as white supremacists on the verge of a racially motivated vigilante murder. From the Times of Israel: ‘The costume created an interesting and important discussion,’ Rina Even-Tov said, according to Channel 2 News.
‘This act essentially created a platform for discussion, it is no different from a Nazi costume’ she concluded.
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