ALLENTOWN, Pa. - A virtual service hosted by an Allentown synagogue was ‘’zoom-bombed’’ over the weekend by hackers who spewed anti-semitic and racial slurs. WLVR’s Megan Frank has more on what happened — and how the congregation plans to recover.
About 75 members of Congregation Keneseth Israel were logged into a Zoom service on Friday night when some uninvited guests uploaded an image of a swastika and began to spew hate-filled language.
The entire ordeal lasted only a few minutes before synagogue leaders pulled the plug on the virtual service.
Rabbi Seth Phillips says the incident has emboldened his congregants to extend their fight against hate. A large number of his members showed up at Black Lives Matter protests throughout the Lehigh Valley over the weekend.
“We’ve been very comfortable in Allentown, Jews have been accepted at all levels of government and society. So, what we lost, is the sense that our position in society — our comfortable economic status and our white skin — would spare us from this hatred. We will continue our work. That’s how we recover. We are not exempt and we cannot turn a blind eye to what is going on in America,” said Phillips.
As for the video conference crashers, Allentown police are investigating the incident.
