The number of hate crimes in Toronto has skyrocketed since October 7, the city’s police chief, Myron Demkiw, said today. Since October, Toronto police have counted 203 reported hate crimes — a 93 percent increase from last year — and more than half have targeted Jews.
Toronto is home to half of Canada’s Jewish population. When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, crowds took to the city’s streets to protest against Israel. From a January Times of Israel report:
Since October 7, in Toronto alone, Jews have experienced a litany of disturbing antisemitic misdeeds.
These include vandalism and boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses, mobs converging on branches of Israeli brands Café Landwer and Aroma, protests outside a Jewish community center and children’s daycare, bomb threats against synagogues and Jewish schools, assaults on Jews and the recent vandalization and arson of a Jewish-owned deli and grocery store, its windows smashed and “Free Palestine” spray-painted on a wall.
Police in the past months have set up permanent command posts around the city’s Jewish neighborhoods and homes to protect against the waves of antisemitism raging through Canada.