Graffiti found at the Jewish community center in Victoria, British Columbia. Photo: CIJA

Canadian Police are investigating antisemitic graffiti that was discovered on a Jewish community center in Victoria, the capital city of British Columbia.

Staff at the Chabad Center for Jewish Life and Learning on Glasgow Street in Victoria called police to report that they had discovered the hateful messages, the Victoria Police Department said in a news release.

The center’s staff moved quickly to remove the messages and review surveillance video, police said, adding that two suspects were caught on camera tagging the centre.

Police are asking the public to help identify the suspects, and the department’s hate crime investigator is looking into the incident, CTV News reported on Friday.

A photo of the graffiti posted on social media showed that the slogans “Gas Jews” and “Kill Jews” had been scrawled in purple marker underneath the building number plate for the Chabad center.

“Jewish children have a right to feel safe in places of learning and recreation, and should never have to come across such hateful slogans when coming to the Chabad Center in Victoria,” the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs declared in a statement on Twitter condemning the vandalism.

Noting that the vandalism coincided with Yom HaShoah, the annual commemoration of the Nazi Holocaust, the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) said it had been “extremely shocking and sickening to see such graffiti.”

Emphasizing that “hate has no place in Victoria or Esquimalt,” the Victoria police department urged anyone with further information about the incident to come forward.