An 11-year-old boy from Jaffa has caught the attention of Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.
George Amire went viral in Israel, after he posted a video of himself on Facebook addressing the bullies who made fun of him in elementary school. In the powerful video, Amire holds up signs with the slurs he was called such as “homo,” “girl,” and “faggot,” ending with a sign reading, “Don’t judge me for who I am. Look at me, then… at yourselves… we are exactly the same.”
Inspired by Amire’s courage, Rivlin reached out to the boy and asked him to help with an anti-bullying/anti-racism campaign in time for Yom Kippur. The video is part of a larger campaign launched by Israeli leaders, an effort to combat growing intolerance and violence towards Arabs and African migrants.
Here it is:
It seems that Amire’s standing up for himself has paid off. Amire told Israeli media outlets that since he made the video, his classmates sheepishly apologized to him:
“The kids in the class said ‘good job’ and kind of apologized and brought me letters, letters of apology, and also wrote that they apologize on behalf of the whole class,” Amire told Army Radio.
Writing on his Facebook page, Rivlin said he asked to meet with Amire after seeing the video, because he wanted to “thank him for the important and moving initiative.”
“We must not be silent in the face of any kind of violence,” Rivlin said in his post. “There has not been and will not be tolerance for violence.”
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