MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A referee was fired after he allegedly called a basketball team that plays for a Jewish middle school in Miami-Dade County “disgusting” when they opted to not say a prayer for the people of Gaza and Palestine during a moment of silence at their game Tuesday night.
In a game against Renaissance Charter School in Cooper City, the girls of the Scheck Hillel basketball team were called to center court, where both teams were asked by the referee to take a moment of silence for the people of Gaza and Palestine, parents of the players told Local 10 News on Wednesday.
Scheck Hillel is a private Jewish School in northeast Miami-Dade.
Parents told Local 10 News that when the students didn’t say a prayer, the referee told them, “Your behavior is disgusting (and) I will file a complaint against all you girls.”
Bob Segal, the president of Super Sports in Broward County, which is responsible for hiring and assigning referees to officiate private school games, told Local 10 News that he fired the referee after making those comments.
“I went into my recliner and cried myself to sleep — that’s how upset I was,” Segal said. “You know what I thought about before I went to sleep? How I would react if it was one of my nine grandchildren.”
One parent played a voice note from the referee who apologized to him and his family following the incident.
“I apologize from the deep of my heart for offending anyone. I was trying to show goodwill. This was meant to be goodwill,” the referee stated on the voice note.
Local 10 News also heard from another referee who said he’d never seen something like that before in his 52 years of being an official.
Local 10 News spoke with the accused referee off-camera who said that he when he said to take a moment of silence for the people of Gaza, he meant all people suffering — both Palestinians and Israelis.
Scheck Hillel Community School released a statement Wednesday to the students and parents of the team, which you can read here: