
Two days after anti-Israel protesters harassed Jewish shoppers preparing for Shabbat at a plaza in a heavily Jewish Toronto suburb on the afternoon of July 1, which was Canada Day, the owner of one of the targeted kosher shops received threatening phone calls calling for his death.
Gabriel, the owner of Taste of Israel at Chabad Gate Plaza in Thornhill, said that the female leader of the protest told him “they have nothing against the Jews, just Zionists,” but then said, “they know where he lives and would come to his home,” World Israel News reported.
Two days later, on Sunday, Gabriel received two anonymous phone calls that told him, “We are coming to kill you.”
According to the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), the protesters travelled an hour north from the controversial Muslim Association of Canada (MAC) conference to Chabad Gate Plaza to “accost Jewish shoppers, intimidating, harassing them as they prepared for Shabbat.”
“Jewish businesses & community members were confronted with unprovoked verbal assaults of Jew-hatred & anti-Jewish racism,” CIJA said on Twitter. “It should be unacceptable to all Canadians for any community to be attacked so blatantly based solely on their identity.”
The protest was also denounced by B’nai Brith, who said it “strongly condemns the vulgar and antisemitic nature of a protest today in Thornhill. The protesters targeted a plaza containing mostly kosher businesses as Jewish shoppers prepared for shabbat.”
Gabriel criticized the police for not forcing the antisemitic crowd to leave after they began to scream and chant at Jewish shoppers and workers in the plaza.
“They did nothing about it. They said people have a right to protest,” he said. “This is not about money. It’s about police incompetence. Tomorrow, they’ll come to kill us.”
Taste of Israel, which has been in the plaza for years, has experienced previous antisemitic harassment. In 2019, the same group attempted to lead a boycott of the store, which failed.