The Kehila Jewish Community Day School has been the target of what appears to be a hate crime.
When the school's webmaster went on the site Thursday morning to look up information, she was shocked to find an "anti-Israel" cartoon posted on the home page.
The site was hacked Wednesday night, Sept. 11 — which principal Peter Greenberg says cannot be a coincidence. The police hate crime unit is investigating the incident, says Constable Debbie McGreal-Dinning.
"(The) investigation is at the preliminary stages at this time," she said.
Greenberg described the cartoon as including a woman wearing a hijab holding onto a very young child who appeared to be in a coffin. On the side, he said, it read "the shells are coming from Israel."
Next to the cartoon, Greenberg says, was a comment that said "It won't stop until…."
"Its kind of disappointing that this is happening. … It wasn't as if there were swastikas painted on the door, it wasn't anything like that. … But still, these cyber attacks you keep hearing about, they're happening all over the world, and unfortunately we experienced it."
Greenberg said that despite tight security on site — like all schools — the online nature of the attack is alarming.
A letter was sent home with students Thursday evening.
"I'm sure some of the kids will come in (Friday) having heard the discussion at home and be full of questions. … And we will say this was some lunatic fringe and we won't allow ourselves to be bullied by it," Greenberg said.
He has been in touch with both IT experts and Hamilton Police who he expects to visit the school Monday.
In the meantime, he said, "we will carry on. Its not like we've been beaten up. … It was just shocking to open up our website and see this trash."
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