(JTA) — “Zoom bombers” in Italy crashed the online launch of a book about the Holocaust and shouted anti-Semitic abuse, including “Jews, we’ll burn you in ovens.”
The Jan. 10 incident on the videoconferencing platform came during the presentation of a book titled “The Generation of the Desert” by Lia Tagliacozzo, a Jewish author who was born to Holocaust survivors, La Republica reported.
“A group of organized people entered en masse the Zoom meeting of the presentation, while my mother was talking,” one of Tagliacozzo’s children, Sara, wrote. “They started shouting ‘Jews in the ovens, the Nazis are back, we will burn you all, you must all die,’ and they had Hitler portraits and swastikas as their personal photos.”
The Zoom bombing phenomenon became increasingly common in 2020, as many in-person encounters were replaced with online events due to emergency measures connected to the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the bombers are anti-Semitic groups that target Jewish events.
In July, a virtual prayer session that included several Dallas-area synagogues was Zoom bombed by intruders shouting “Kill all Jews, bomb Israel.” In March, a synagogue in Connecticut reported being Zoom bombed with anti-Semitic messages during their Shabbat services.
The Anti-Defamation League recorded at least 11 anti-Semitic Zoom bombings in the United States and Canada in March and April alone alone.
Lia Tagliacozzo said she was shocked by the incident, telling La Republica that “The Nazis again entered my family’s home, like in 1943.”
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