A member of law enforcement personnel works at the scene outside the US Consulate after shots were fired, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, March 10, 2026. Picture taken with a mobile phone. Photo: REUTERS/Kyaw Soe Oo

A Jewish real estate agent has been brutally assaulted while on his way to meet a client at a Toronto commercial center, marking the latest in a string of targeted antisemitic hate crimes as hostility toward Jews and Israelis continues to intensify across Canada.

In a Facebook post, Joseph Bitton described the incident, alleging that a man identifying himself as a Shiite Houthi Muslim from Yemen threatened to kill him, shouted antisemitic slurs at him over his Jewish identity, and then physically attacked him.

According to Bitton’s account, the suspect accused Israel of “killing babies and committing genocide against Palestinians” before launching into a barrage of antisemitic insults, issuing threats, and escalating the confrontation into a violent attack.

The assailant then allegedly threw a parking ticket dispenser, bricks, stones, and metal bars at Bitton, then struck him with a thick wooden branch.

Bitton said he sustained only minor scratches and physical injuries after escaping the attack, but noted that the experience left him shaken and deeply unsettled.

“This is not the Canada where I grew up and lived for the past 64 years,” he wrote in the Facebook post.

Local police responded after Bitton called for help, arresting the suspect at the scene and opening an investigation, with authorities treating the attack as a suspected hate crime.

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 and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Antisemitic incidents in Canada surged to a record high in 2025 for the second consecutive year, with 6,800 acts of anti-Jewish hate reported nationwide, underscoring a persistently hostile climate for Jews and Israelis across the country.

The Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith Canada released its annual report on antisemitism in April, documenting a 9.3 percent increase in hate crimes last year that surpassed the previous record total of 6,219 set in 2024.

Early 2026 data already indicate the country is on track to see its most violent year against the Jewish community in recent memory, with more violent antisemitic attacks recorded so far this year than during all of 2025. In total, 11 violent antisemitic attacks have already been recorded across the country since the start of 2026, surpassing the 10 violent incidents documented during all of last year.

Last month, a gunman opened fire in Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood, the heart of the city’s Jewish community, killing a police officer and a local rabbi in one of the latest violent attacks raising alarm over the safety of Jewish residents.

In May, a group of Jewish worshippers standing outside the Congregation Chasidei Bobov synagogue in Montreal was targeted in a drive-by shooting, leaving one person with minor injuries. A week earlier, three visibly Jewish residents were targeted in a separate antisemitic attack when suspects opened fire with a gel-pellet gun, causing minor injuries.

Two synagogues in Toronto were also targeted by gunfire earlier this year, 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.