The Onteora school district is investigating reports that a small group of students wore costumes resembling traditional Hasidic garb and waved oversized fake money at Woodstock’s Halloween parade on Oct. 31, Superintendent Victoria McLaren said.
A photograph provided by a parade attendee and reviewed by The Overlook shows three young people walking away from the camera wearing long black coats, black hats, and sidelocks. No fake money is visible in the photo.
Mike Jacobs, 52, of Saugerties, said he saw at least three people in Hasidic-style costumes near the Village Green during the parade, with at least one holding oversized imitation bills. A friend who was with him, and who asked not to be named to protect his privacy, corroborated that account. When the two men confronted the group, one person said he was “half Jewish,” Jacobs recalled; his friend recalled one saying he bought his costume at Spirit Halloween.
Pairing Jewish religious dress with money draws on centuries-old stereotypes associating Jews with greed, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
“I see this as an opportunity for education, to have a conversation and share humanity,” Rabbi Karen Levine of the Woodstock Jewish Congregation said.
Levine called the incident a teachable moment for young people who had made a mistake.
“It’d be great to invite them to the synagogue to have a firsthand experience of who Jews are,” she said.
In a letter to families and community members on Wednesday, Nov. 4, Superintendent McLaren wrote that the costumes depicted antisemitic stereotypes and called the actions “harmful and unacceptable.”
“We take reports of antisemitism seriously,” McLaren told The Overlook. “We recognize the damage that this can do. We are looking into what our role is and can be.”
McLaren said the district was considering additional educational programming to build on its existing curriculum but hadn’t yet developed a detailed plan. She didn’t give information on whether the students went to Onteora schools.
The incident comes amid historically high levels of reported antisemitism in the United States. The Anti-Defamation League recorded 6,274 antisemitic incidents nationwide in 2025, down 33% from 2024 but the third-highest count since the group began tracking in 1979. Incidents at non-Jewish K-12 schools held almost steady at 825, compared with 860 in 2024, most involving bullying or vandalism among classmates.
McLaren said she hadn’t seen an increase in complaints of antisemitic bullying over the past year.
Spirit Halloween lists an “Adult Rabbi Costume” that includes a coat, scarf, beard, and hat with attached sidelocks, but no fake money.
Images of the Spirit Halloween rabbi costume paired with fake money circulated on meme accounts in September. One post, from cursednews4u, an account billed as “funny news and memes” with nearly half a million followers, had hundreds of thousands of likes as of Thursday. The account mixes entertainment news with misinformation, and it’s unclear whether the photo was real or staged.
A Yale Youth Poll released this spring found that registered voters ages 18 to 34 who got their news from social media were more likely to agree with antisemitic statements than those who got their news from television, newspapers, or news websites.
Spirit Halloween doesn’t sell its rabbi costume with imitation money, said Kevin Mahoney, senior vice president and general counsel at Spencer Gifts LLC, the retailer’s parent company. He said Spirit Halloween has sold the costume for years and that he hadn’t been aware of recent viral posts alleging it came with fake cash.
“Even if someone tried to sell the costume like that in one of our stores, it would be stopped,” Mahoney said.
The Woodstock Chamber of Commerce & Arts, a volunteer organization that promotes local businesses and artists and sponsors the parade, condemned the display. What was reported to organizers was “a caricature that was clearly offensive and spread a message that is unwelcome in this community,” Rachel Marco-Havens, the chamber’s co-president, said in an email.
Marco-Havens said the incident fits a broader pattern of costumes that turn other cultures into caricatures, pointing to people who dress up in Indigenous headdresses. A response, she said, should include examining the examples adults set and improving relationships across the community.
“The Chamber and the Halloween team are not in a place to police costumes,” she said, “yet this gives pause to review what Halloween in Woodstock has become and how to move forward responsibly.”
Noah Eckstein is the editor-in-chief of The Overlook. Send correspondence to noah@theoverlooknews.com.
