Toronto police announced on Tuesday that they are looking into antisemitic graffiti found in the city’s Beach neighbourhood that was described by a Jewish advocacy organization as “disturbing.”
The graffiti was discovered on a sidewalk in front of the Toronto United Mennonite Church. Police were notified about the vandalism at 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, CBC News reported.
"It was allegedly antisemitic. It's been covered up," police spokesperson Constable Shannon Eames told the CBC.
Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies CEO Michael Levitt called the graffiti “disturbing,” and urged police to charge whoever was responsible.
"At a time of surging antisemitism in Toronto and across the country, it's very disturbing to once again see such hateful graffiti targeting the Jewish community," he told the news outlet.
Levitt told Global News that “antisemitism and Jew hatred [need to be taken] seriously.”
“I think Jews across Canada and around the world are feeling a change, a chill in the air,” he said. “Certainly when we look at the empirical data, whether it’s Statistics Canada, Toronto Police Service here in Toronto or the B’nai Brith annual audit, we see the trend upwards for acts of antisemitism and Jew hatred. But Jews in Canada, myself included, we feel it – it’s palpable.”
B’nai Brith Canada’s research coordinator Richard Robertson told Global that the graffiti is a public safety concern.
“This particular incident was especially problematic as it’s perpetuating a false narrative about Jewish people and disseminating such a narrative has the propensity to create additional acts of antisemitism,” he said.