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

Two synagogues in Toronto were targeted by gunfire overnight on Friday, marking the third shooting targeting Jewish institutions in less than a week and intensifying fears of a rapidly deteriorating security climate for Jews and Israelis across Canada.

Local police confirmed that the two synagogues — the Shaarei Shomayim synagogue in North York and the Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto (BAYT) synagogue in Thornhill, both in Ontario’s Greater Toronto Area — suffered gunfire attacks, with multiple bullet holes found in their front windows and exterior walls.

The incidents came just four days after another attack in Toronto, in which a Jewish-owned restaurant and a local synagogue were also hit by gunfire.

Canadian authorities assured the public that they are investigating the incidents and examining any potential links, but no suspects have been identified at this time.

On Sunday, the local Jewish community gathered to confront this relentless wave of antisemitic attacks, standing in solidarity, raising awareness of the growing threats, and calling for meaningful protections for their safety and places of worship.

During a news conference outside the Shaarei Shomayim Synagogue, Sara Lefton, chief development officer of the United Jewish Appeal Federation of Greater Toronto, described last week’s attacks as shocking yet not surprising, highlighting the escalating wave of antisemitic violence sweeping Canada.

“We are shaken to our core at this moment,” Lefton said. “It’s beyond anything that we could have imagined.”

She called on “every part of Canadian society” to take action against discrimination toward Jews and Israelis, stressing that government officials must coordinate with concrete commitments and funding to ensure the community feels safe and protected.

“It’s not enough to say our thoughts and prayers are with the Jewish community. This is not a Jewish issue; this is a Canadian issue,” Lefton said.

Toronto-born Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel also condemned the shootings, describing them as “antisemitic terrorism.”

“Anti-Jewish terror is a result of a global failure to confront antisemitism and the hatred directed at the Jewish people,” the Israeli diplomat wrote in a post on X. 

Israel’s ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed, urged Ottawa to take strong action to hold those responsible accountable and to strengthen security measures for Jewish institutions nationwide.

“The safety of Canada’s Jewish community must remain a national priority and a collective responsibility,” Moed said in a statement.

Toronto Deputy Mayor Mike Colle pointed out that he has been pressing both provincial and federal governments over the past three years to establish a task force specifically aimed at fighting antisemitism.

“[Local law enforcement] cannot do this alone. This is not a local police matter,” Colle said. “It’s not good enough to make speeches or propose laws now.”

Yet his initiatives stand in sharp contrast to Mayor Olivia Chow’s history of openly anti-Israel statements and positions. In November, several Canadian Jewish groups called on her to apologize and even resign for publicly calling Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip a “genocide” 

Like most countries across the Western world, Canada has seen a rise in antisemitic incidents over the last two years, in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Canadian Jews have been hit by a wave of antisemitic incidents, with at least 32 reported across five provinces in just the first week of January this year, according to data collected by the Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith.

“Antisemitism in Canada is now accelerating at an increasing rate, spreading across provinces, platforms, and public spaces. That is a warning signal, and it demands more than piecemeal reactions,” the group wrote in a letter urging Prime Minister Mark Carney to create a Royal Commission that would explore the problem and draft policy proposals for solving it.

In one of the latest antisemitic incidents, a kosher restaurant and a neighboring business in Montreal, the largest city in the province of Quebec, were vandalized last week, with antisemitic graffiti and swastikas spray-painted across their walls.

In another troubling antisemitic incident, a 15-year-old Jewish student in Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia, has been forced to continue his education online after his school failed to stop repeated antisemitic harassment and bullying.

According to B’nai Brith’s latest audit released last year, antisemitic incidents in 2024 rose 7.4 percent from 2023, with 6,219 adding up to the highest total recorded since it began tracking such data in 1982. 

Seventeen incidents occurred on average every day, while online antisemitism exploded a harrowing 161 percent since 2022. As standalone provinces, Quebec and Alberta saw the largest percentage increases, by 215 percent and 160 percent, respectively.