Synagogues across Canada received threatening messages on Monday, during the 8-day Hanukkah festival, B’nai Brith Canada has reported.
Members of the Adath Israel synagogue in Toronto say a letter which read “Jewry Must Perish” was delivered Monday. The ominous message featured a bloody Star of David, with a swastika superimposed on it.
Marty York of B’nai Brith Canada said the letter was disturbing, calling it an ‘eight out of ten’.
“It was an eight on the frighten scale,” York told CBC News.
The Canadian B’nai Brith claimed that more than 1,700 anti-Semitic incidents were reported over the last year – the highest number since the group began tracking them in 1982.
Two synagogues in Montreal also received similar letters on Monday.
Congregations Shaare Zedek and Beth Ora contacted local law enforcement officials over the ‘hate letters’.
“It’s scary,” Shaare Zedek executive director Julian Lewin told CBC News. “It’s obviously a hate letter.”
According to B’nai Brith Canada, at least five threatening letters were sent to Canadian synagogues on Monday, including congregations in Hamilton and Edmonton.
Canadian synagogues receive offensive hate mail calling for #genocide of the Jews. @bnaibrithcanada speaks out: https://t.co/PKCe66pxDZ#antisemitismpic.twitter.com/yCEs9MJ7zm
— Brian Herman (@HermanBBcan) December 18, 2017
