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What happened at the hockey game between New Canaan and Fairfield Prep was not immaturity. It was not joking. It was not rivalry. It was antisemitism.
Supporters reportedly wrote and circulated phrases including “Jew Canaan” and “Win or lose we booze, and at least we’re not Jews.” Those words were not accidental. They were chosen. They were written. They were shared in public. This was deliberate, shameless antisemitism.
Here’s a few of them:
And the deeper scandal is not just that it happened. It is that antisemitism has become so accepted, so casual, and so normalized that people now feel comfortable saying these things out loud and in public. That is the real rot. That is the real warning sign. This must not become the new normal in Fairfield, in Connecticut, or anywhere in America.
It is even more pathetic that after being defeated by New Canaan - they claimed that it was because they had Netanyahu.
This disgrace has now traveled far beyond one rink and one town. It has reached Israel. We have received messages from Israeli Knesset representatives asking what the hell is going on in Connecticut. Think about that. They are in a war and they care about what happens in Connecticut as the war on antisemitism is the ninth-front.
Fairfield is now being spoken about internationally not for excellence, not for leadership, but as an example of open antisemitic hatred in America. They understand it in New York with Mamdani - but in Connecticut - really?
State Representative Tom O’Dea [ [link removed] ], who represents New Canaan, North Stamford, and Darien, reached out to us in total shock and disgust after hearing about what transpired.
“I was disgusted by these acts in competitive athletics and condemn antisemitism in all forms,” he said. “I have always stood with my Jewish brothers and sisters, who have always stood with us. I call on my colleagues in Hartford and throughout Connecticut to stand up against antisemitism with me. Hate has no place anywhere, whether on the ice or in any athletic or academic setting.”
As a family of Holocaust survivors, we do not need a lecture on where this leads. We know exactly where it leads. Hate does not stay contained. It never does. It starts with slurs, humiliation, and public degradation. It escalates when decent people stay quiet, when institutions hide behind process, and when communities excuse what should be condemned without hesitation.
The numbers make clear that this is not isolated. The ADL recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents in the United States in 2024, the highest total ever recorded. Connecticut alone saw 159 antisemitic incidents in 2024. So no, this is not random. This is part of a much larger disease, and Fairfield has now shown that it is not immune from it.
Even after October 7, even after communities like Fairfield organized efforts such as Run for Their Lives to stand with the hostages and against terror, antisemitism has only become more brazen. More visible. More acceptable in polite society. More mainstream. That is a moral collapse.
So let there be no hedging and no cowardice.
We call on every elected leader in Fairfield to publicly condemn this antisemitism.
We call on both the Republican and Democratic Town Committees to denounce it without spin, without excuse, and without trying to bend it to their own political purposes. Antisemitism is too often weaponized across the political spectrum for different ends, and that is exactly why leaders in both parties need to speak with absolute moral clarity now.
We call on the First Selectman and the Board of Selectmen to make clear that Fairfield will not be a place where antisemitism is tolerated.
We call on Fairfield Prep to do more than manage the optics of this scandal. Discipline is not enough. If students felt comfortable producing and sharing this filth, then something deeper is broken, and it needs to be confronted directly with serious education and moral accountability.
We call on every religious institution in Fairfield to speak out. Not softly. Not vaguely. Clearly. Publicly. Now.
And We call on the broader Fairfield community to decide what kind of town it wants to be. A town that shrugs at antisemitism is a town in decline. A town that confronts it without apology still has a moral backbone.
This is bigger than one game. Bigger than one school. Bigger than one incident. This is about whether antisemitism will be treated as the social poison that it is, or whether people will keep normalizing it until something worse follows.
Never again is not a slogan. It is a test. Fairfield is being tested right now.
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