The realities of the pandemic-induced “new normal” met some longstanding bigotry this weekend on an Alabama video conference.
The Montgomery Advertiser reported that several dozen people from Jewish congregations across Montgomery, Auburn, Dothan and Mobile were on a Zoom call on Saturday night.
The remote service was reportedly organized by Rabbi Scott Kramer of synagogue Agudath Israel Etz Ahayem in Montgomery.
The rabbi advised that he organized the Zoom in preparation for the High Holy Days, which is the period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins this coming Friday and ends on Sunday. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement and holiest day of the year for the Jewish faith, begins on September 27 and ends the following day.
According to Kramer, the Saturday night meeting quickly devolved from something typically “very cathartic [and] very soothing” to a traumatizing event when multiple uninvited people joined the video conference.
“Screens came up of very shocking imagery of Hitler, swastikas and I thought some pornographic images,” the rabbi outlined to the Montgomery Advertiser. “It was chaotic. Then voices came in screaming at everyone using bad language, anti-Semitic language, telling us ‘you should go back to the showers,’ which is of course a reference to the Holocaust.”
The account was corroborated to the paper by Micki Beth Stiller, a trustee at Temple Beth Or in Montgomery.
Stiller referenced “clips of Hitler, the N-word, ‘f—-t Jew’ and disparaging things coming on the screen.”
“It was just stunning. It feels like you’ve been violated,” Stiller added.
This reportedly occurred for almost 10 minutes before the rabbi ended the call.
However, when Kramer soon restarted the meeting, the call crashers returned.
“They came back,” the rabbi explained. “It was my fault, we used the same Zoom ID. We were eventually able to remove them and continue the service with everyone sitting there crying, including me.”
Kramer has reportedly been in touch with law enforcement about the meeting, including the FBI.
What transpired on the Zoom could have longterm effects for the congregants.
“We’re still reeling from this,” the rabbi shared, reportedly emotional while doing so. “Most people have not experienced this before, I had never experienced this before. It’s a gut punch.”
“I am sorry for whatever these people (who committed the anti-Semitic acts) lack in their lives and why they feel they need to prey on others that cannot defend themselves, but unfortunately we’re seeing this all over the country. To the people that attend synagogues, we need to go about everything as if it’s normal, because if we don’t the white supremacists win,” Kramer added.
Read the full report here.
Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
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