Hateful Hack Instead Inspires Hope During Hanukkah Season

New York City NY

16 December, 2020

10:00 PM

Description

GREAT NECK, NY — The anti-Semitic attack on the North Shore Hebrew Academy High School's website, coming during the peaceful celebration of Hanukkah, has had the opposite effect of what was intended. Instead, supporters of the Orthodox Jewish school in Great Neck are inspiring hope — in keeping with the religious season — by raising scholarship money for a student who might not normally be able to attend classes for financial reasons. North Shore Hebrew Academy supporters, The Israel Files, have raised over $2,250 towards their $40,000 goal to support one year's tuition on GoFundMe. The page was set up yesterday in response to a cyber attack on the school's website on Monday. Page organizers did not immediately respond to a reporter's inquiry by deadline. The high school's website was down at about 5 p.m. on Monday with a note that the site was under construction and to check back soon. It was reportedly taken over by hackers who posted anti-Semitic images and rhetoric. Details of the attack emerged on Twitter, as multiple users displayed imagery from the site, much of it containing what appeared to be Swastikas and Nazi propaganda. One Twitter user tweeted a video containing Nazi soldiers marching. Another user tweeted video playing a children's song about the notorious Polish concentration camp, Auschwitz. A video was posted to the North Shore Hebrew Academy's website which contained World War II footage and a song mocking those that perished in Nazi concentration camps, the school's logo was changed to that of a Swastika, and a photo showed the school's name as the "North Shore Hebrew Death Camp," according to the GoFundMe page. "But, unbeknownst to them, this/these hateful individual(s) are inspiring new opportunities for Jewish education," the page states. "As the sixth night of Chanukkah continues, we will continue to dispel and vanquish darkness in the best way we know how — creating light."