Illustrative. Photo: Reuters / Vincent Kessler.

The number of antisemitic incidents in Canada spiked in 2018, according to a new study published on Monday.

The 2018 Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents commissioned by the League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith Canada showed 2,041 incidents of antisemitism took place last year, a 16.5 percent increase from 2017.

Among the events recorded were a group of teenagers who set off fireworks next to Hasidic Jews, two elementary school students assaulted, a high school student mocked for having a “Jewish nose,” a threatening phone call saying, “You Jews deserve to die,” and a teenage student threatened by another teen who said he would “shoot up a Jewish school” and told her, “Go back into the ovens.”

The study showed a 28.4-percent jump in antisemitic harassment, a 61.5-percent increase since 2015. Eighty-percent of incidents of harassment occurred online, most on social media sites

Chief Executive Officer of B’nai Brith Canada Michael Mostyn said in a statement, “We are experiencing a disturbing new normal when it comes to antisemitism in this country, with expressions of anti-Jewish hatred surfacing in regions that are typically less prone to such prejudices.”

“Of particular concern is the rise of antisemitic harassment on social media, including death threats, threats of violence and malicious anti-Jewish comments and rhetoric,” he added.

“The massacre of Jewish worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, just days before a Montreal man threatened online to ‘kill Jewish girls,’ shows us that some individuals sadly make good on their threats. We must always be vigilant against all forms of hatred,” Mostyn noted.