A man cleans photos and items of victims of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks from the Dizengoff Square fountain memorial on Sunday in Tel Aviv, Israel.Chris McGrath/Getty Images
One of the country’s largest Jewish organizations is calling on the federal government to spend millions more on security for Canada’s synagogues, as Israel’s war in Gaza approaches its second anniversary.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) says rising antisemitism and violent attacks on Jews have forced Jewish communities across Canada to spend more than $40-million in the past year on private security and in fortifying their places of worship.
Started in 2023, the federal Canada Community Security Program provides about $20-million in funding annually to help communities at risk of hate crimes improve security at their gathering spaces.
In an era when hate crimes are rising and police are becoming a common sight outside synagogues, that needs to be substantially increased, says the CIJA’s chief executive Noah Shack.
“I think it would be shocking to most Canadians to learn that you have to walk by armed police officers to get into a synagogue today in many places in Canada,” he told The Globe and Mail.
“We really need to make sure that we’re being preventative here, that we’re not waiting for something even more horrific to take place before we take action to keep people safe.”
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In Britain, where an attack on a Manchester synagogue last week left two dead, the government is giving the equivalent of $132-million to Community Security Trust, a charity dedicated to protecting British Jews from terrorism and antisemitism, the CIJA said.
Canada’s Jews need similar protection, Mr. Shack said – pointing to a Jewish woman who was stabbed in an Ottawa grocery store last month, Jewish-run schools and businesses that have been targeted and synagogues desecrated.
Police forces in major cities across Canada say they are deploying extra officers around synagogues and closely watching memorials and protests planned to mark the two-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas. In Mr. Shack’s North York neighbourhood, a mobile police command station has been parked near his synagogue since the subsequent war in Gaza began.
Pro-Palestinian protesters, meanwhile, say the war – with more than 64,000 people killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry – amounts to genocide, and have called for Canada to join an arms embargo against the country.
In Montreal and Toronto Saturday, tens of thousands marched in the streets in support of Palestinians. Representatives for labour unions, student groups and organizations such as the Palestinian Youth Movement said they wouldn’t stop planning demonstrations until Israel’s “genocidal campaign” in the Gaza Strip ends, and accused Ottawa of being complicit in the violence there.
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On Sunday afternoon, there was another protest in Montreal – a car rally with hundreds of vehicles and motorcycles flying Palestinian flags held near the Trans-Canada Highway in the city’s north end. The same group behind that event is planning another protest in Montreal to mark the Oct. 7 anniversary.
Police in Montreal said they wouldn’t discuss security preparations for gatherings related to the Israel-Hamas conflict but acknowledged the need for greater vigilance just weeks after a synagogue in Florida was firebombed.
“We never share the number of officers on site during these events, but we are present and we’re watching closely,” said Véronique Dubuc, a media-relations officer with Montreal Police.
“We’re also paying special attention to synagogues right now, particularly with what happened in the United States.”
The UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, a Jewish community organization, said it had to take special security precautions ahead of its Oct. 7 memorial on Sunday night, which included speeches and prayers to commemorate the victims killed in the Hamas attacks.
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Daniel Held, the federation’s chief program officer, said the security measures – including a police presence and not publicizing the event’s exact location online – are now commonplace across the Jewish community.
“There will be tight security tonight, but unfortunately, it’s not just tonight,” Mr. Held said in an interview before Sunday’s event.
“It’s the kind of security that we’ve had to have at our daycares and our schools and our summer camps and our synagogues. Our children go to school today under guard, because we have seen these attacks against our community over the last two years,” he said. “We go to synagogue every week and on high holidays with police presence and with private security to make sure that we can be safe,” Mr. Held added.
Last year, the UJA launched the Jewish Security Network, a new agency with the mandate to help Jewish institutions strengthen their security infrastructure and to work closely with law enforcement.
Mr. Held said that since Oct. 7, the Jewish community in Toronto, across the country and around the world has seen an “incredible upsurge” in antisemitism, not only in the form of hate speech but through physical threats and violence, as well.
“We’ve had synagogues that have been torched, we’ve had schools that have been shot at, we’ve had community members who have been assaulted and attacked, and the sense of insecurity we feel as our community is being victimized like this and terrorized like this is horrific.”