London's Jewish community is on edge but resilient in wake of GTA and Detroit synagogue attacks

Following a wave of antisemitic attacks on Jewish congregations in Toronto and Michigan, Jewish leaders in London, Ont., say their community feels shaken, but also determined to remain resilient.

On March 12, a man rammed a car into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township near Detroit, the largest Reform synagogue in the United States. In the previous week, shots were fired at three synagogues in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), two in North York and one in Vaughan. 

No one was injured in the attacks but they left the community shaken — a feeling shared by Jewish people in London, located about two and a half hours from both the GTA and the Detroit.

“They're uncomfortable with their children going to the demonstrably Jewish school, they're uncomfortable coming into the synagogues, they're uncomfortable identifying themselves openly as Jews,” said Rabbi Eliezer Gurkow of Beth Tefilah Synagogue in London. 

“Nevertheless, we have a long history of standing down antisemites and ugly haters. We have survived them all, and we are very confident we will survive it again.” 

The attacks were horrifying, though “unfortunately unsurprising,” said Dikla Rozenshtein Shlomi, director of Hillel Western, a campus group for Jewish students. They confirm a troubling reality, she added, that antisemitism has reached dangerous levels. 

According to data from Statistics Canada, hate crimes targeting Jewish people rose 82 per cent in 2023 — the year of the Oct. 7 attack in Israel and the start of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza — to 959 incidents, followed by 920 in 2024. 

That represented 71.3 and 68.5 per cent of hate crimes against a religious group for each year respectively, despite Jewish people making up less than one per cent of Canada’s population as per the latest census. 

In this climate, Gurkow said there is always a possibility of an incident like those in the GTA and Michigan happening in London.

“It can happen today, it can happen tomorrow,” he said. “It happened to our right and to our left, east of us and west of us.” 

When supporting his congregation, Gurkow advises people of the need to invest in security and avoid unnecessary risks. At the same time, he said they cannot live in fear or let intimidation and terror prevail. 

He tells people to be "courageously wise.” 

For Jewish students on campus, Rozenshtein Shlomi said events like these shape how safe and comfortable students feel expressing their identity.

"Whether that is wearing a Jewish symbol, speaking about Israel, or simply gathering openly as Jews,” she said.