A Zoom meeting meant to help Chapel Hill High School seniors and their families sort out colleges, scholarships and senior-class issues took a dark turn Wednesday night when an unidentified person hijacked the call, flashing antisemitic images and messages before organizers could cut the connection. The intruder claimed to be Jon Minadeo II, described as the leader of the Goyim Defense League, and was removed from the meeting after about 90 seconds.
The meeting had been open to anyone with the link, which Chapel Hill High School posted publicly on its Facebook page without requiring attendees to register, according to the News & Observer. District spokesman Andy Jenks confirmed those details to the paper, noting the session was intended purely to walk senior families through colleges, scholarships and other end-of-high-school logistics — not the kind of gathering anyone expected to become a target.
Principal Patrick Greene addressed the incident in an email to staff and families, calling it deeply disturbing and saying the disruption was shocking and upsetting to those on the call. Greene pointed out that it landed between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the High Holy Days that mark a period of celebration and atonement in the Jewish faith, making the timing especially painful for the community. He said the school unequivocally condemns antisemitism, hate and harassment, and stands with the Jewish students, families, staff and community members who were targeted or affected.
School Reviewing Security, Reporting to Authorities
Chapel Hill High School is reviewing what happened and working to add more security to future virtual meetings, per the reporting. The incident has also been reported to the school resource officer and other district officials, though the district has not detailed what specific security changes are being considered. Greene said anyone with information or in need of support can reach out to him directly at [email protected].
The name invoked by the intruder ties back to a group the Anti-Defamation League describes as a loose network of individuals who promote vitriolic antisemitism and white supremacist themes through online activity, propaganda distributions and real-world actions. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the Goyim Defense League is led by Jon Minadeo II and operates in multiple states — though the evidence does not independently confirm that the person who actually joined the Chapel Hill meeting was Minadeo himself, only that the caller identified himself that way.
A Familiar Tactic With North Carolina Ties
This is not the first time the group's name has surfaced in North Carolina. In 2024, Ariel Ramos, owner of the GDL-affiliated Patriot Candle Co., was charged in High Point with threatening communications after allegedly sending antisemitic postcards to Jewish groups and public officials, the News & Observer reported, citing the ADL.
Disruptions like the one at Chapel Hill High fall under a pattern commonly called Zoom bombing, in which uninvited participants exploit open video-call links to broadcast hateful or shocking content before hosts can react. A Matthews Board of Commissioners meeting was hit with a barrage of antisemitic, racist and homophobic slurs via teleconference in February 2024, according to WSOC-TV, prompting the town to reconsider its policies for virtual public comment.
In Wyoming, antisemitic commenters derailed the Laramie City Council's public-comment periods for months, logging in virtually and jamming the floor with hateful rhetoric until the council restricted virtual public comments rather than closing all public-comment periods altogether, according to Wyoming Public Media. That report noted the Goyim Defense League had disrupted more than 140 local government meetings nationwide since the prior summer, eventually pushing Laramie to scale back virtual comment options entirely.
Chapel Hill Schools Faced This Before
Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools has grappled with Zoom intrusions before. Cedar Ridge High School experienced a Zoombombing incident in August 2020 in which inappropriate language and images were shared before teachers removed them, according to The Daily Tar Heel. In response, the district implemented verified meeting room logs, removed the ability to call into meetings by phone, and encouraged parents to remind students to keep class links private.
The broader numbers suggest antisemitic activity has eased somewhat even as it remains historically elevated. North Carolina recorded 96 antisemitic incidents in 2025, down 45% from 175 the year before, though that figure is still 638% higher than the 13 incidents logged in 2020, according to the Anti-Defamation League's Washington, D.C. regional office. The state ranked fifth nationally for white supremacist propaganda in 2025, even as vandalism incidents ticked up from 33 to 35 over the same period. Nationally, the ADL's 2025 audit tracked 6,274 antisemitic incidents across the country, a 33% drop from 2024 but still considerably higher than pre-October 7, 2023, totals, with incidents at non-Jewish K-12 schools holding relatively steady at 825 compared with 860 the year before.
