By Shiryn Ghermezian
An anti-Semitic cybersecurity attack that took place at a Jewish high school in Long Island, NY, on Dec. 13 has left students on edge and parents contemplating whether they should keep their children at home for the rest of the school year.
Anti-Semitic images, threats, slurs and songs were posted on the website of North Shore Hebrew Academy High School in Great Neck.
They were also included in emails sent to the school’s parents and students on Dec. 13.
Skyler Askari, 15, a 10th-grader at the private high school, told JNS that the hacked emails were first sent out Monday afternoon around 3 p.m. after classes had already concluded.
The school ended early on Monday because of parent-teacher conferences set to take place that evening, which were then canceled because of what transpired at the school.
The first disturbing email that Askari received included details of a one-way “field trip” to Auschwitz for $85.
The application deadline was listed as “January 1945,” and the email said students would have to “walk into an SS office and declare themselves as Jews.”
“I was really confused. I thought it was part of a program,” said the teen, who was doing remote learning. “And then a couple of minutes later, we got another email saying, ‘Our website has been updated. Let us know what you think.’”
On the school’s homepage, the North Shore logo was changed to a swastika; the background image was modified to show a Nazi concentration camp; and the school’s name was changed to “North Shore Hebrew Concentration Camp.”
Its address was also changed to that of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
“[My daughter] came to my room and said, ‘Mom, I’m so confused. Something is going on,’” said Jessica, Skyler’s mom. “She showed me, and I said, ‘Close the email immediately.’ And then I went to my email, and it was flooded” with anti-Semitic messages and leaked personal information.
Photos, credit card information, home addresses and other personal details about the school’s students and teachers were circulated in emails, and students were even sent an entire Google document that listed all their personal information, including phone numbers. At the end of the email, the hackers wrote “[Expletive] ISRAEL.”
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David Wemhoff returns to Our Interesting Times to discuss a couple articles he recently posted - “War Works: The Current Civil War As Necessity?” and “The Most Important Issue of Our Time: Election 2020 As A Stark Reminder.”
David is a lawyer practicing in South Bend, Indiana and the author of John Courtney Murray, Time/Life, and the American Proposition: How the CIA's Doctrinal Warfare Changed the Catholic Church. His website is The American Proposition.
