People attend Canada’s Rally for the Jewish People at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, in December 2023. Photo: Shawn Goldberg via Reuters Connect

A Canadian man has been sentenced to one year in jail and two years of probation after being convicted of assault in an antisemitic attack on a Jewish couple walking home from synagogue last year.

On Monday, the Ontario Court of Justice sentenced 36-year-old Kenneth Jeewan Gobin after his March conviction on two counts of assault and one count of breaching probation.

According to court evidence, Gobin — who has an extensive criminal record and was on probation for a previous crime at the time of the attack — deliberately planned the assault against the Jewish couple, driven by antisemitic hatred.

The incident took place on Jan. 6, 2024, when Gobin, riding an electric bicycle, approached four Jewish adults returning home from synagogue and deliberately mounted the curb to target them. He then began assaulting the two couples, hurling antisemitic slurs during the attack.

As he continued hitting the victims, he performed a Nazi salute and shouted antisemitic insults, including “Hitler should have killed you all” and “You should have died in the Holocaust,” striking one of the women in the process.

The sentencing came after a months-long trial, during which the court heard multiple victim and community impact statements.

Among several testimonies submitted to the court, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) — a nonprofit human rights organization dedicated to Holocaust education and antisemitism programs — described Gobin’s attack as an “unprovoked, hate-motivated assault.”

“When expressions of hate are paired with physical acts of aggression, they pose a grave threat to public safety and social cohesion,” Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, FSWC’s senior director of policy and advocacy, said in a statement. “History has repeatedly shown that when this kind of hatred is ignored or minimized, it paves the way to more widespread and dangerous violence.”

“These acts are not isolated incidents — they’re part of a deeply troubling historical pattern whose gravity must be taken seriously,” Kirzner-Roberts continued. “Today’s sentence sends a strong and necessary message: hate-fueled violence cannot and will not go unpunished.”

As with several other countries around the world, Canada has witnessed a surge in antisemitic incidents following the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

In 2024, the country recorded a record-breaking 6,219 anti-Jewish incidents, according to B’nai Brith Canada, up from 5,791 the previous year. Although members of the Jewish community make up less than 1 percent of the country’s population, they were targeted in one-fifth of all hate crimes.