Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Teen Arrested For Threatening Jewish Boy Who Was Forced To Kiss Muslim’s Shoe

(JTA) — A teenage boy in Victoria, Australia who allegedly sent threatening messages to a Jewish boy who had been forced to kiss the shoe of a Muslim student and to his mother has been charged for the threats.

The boy, 16, was arrested by Victoria police and charged with stalking, harassing and threatening to kill the Jewish boy and his mother, The Age reported.

The teen, who reportedly was arrested earlier this month will appear next month in Children’s Court, the newspaper said.

The threats were sent after photos of the incident in which a 12-year-old Jewish student was forced in a public park to kneel to kiss the shoes of a Muslim classmate while being threatened by other older schoolboys, were splashed across the front pages of newspapers in Australia and around the world, the Daily Mail reported. The photo was first published by the Australian Jewish News.

Among the messages sent to the 12-year-old boy was one which said he would be slaughtered and asked if he wanted to “talk about suicide.”

The boy was removed from Cheltenham Secondary College in suburban Melbourne and enrolled in a Jewish school.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.