Members of Winnipeg's Jewish community shaken after Toronto-area shootings, local police to increase patrols

Some Jewish leaders in Winnipeg say community members have been left feeling shaken after shots were fired at several Toronto-area synagogues this week. 

Winnipeg South Centre MP Ben Carr said it was difficult to see bullet holes piercing the doors of a synagogue. He visited Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto in Vaughan and Shaarei Shomayim in North York after they were hit by gunfire overnight on Saturday. 

"It's very real to stand in front of the doors of a synagogue and see bullet holes that have travelled through three different sets of doors and shattered glass," said Carr. 

"It's also reminiscent — glass broken on the front of Jewish doors — of a time many decades ago, before the Holocaust, at a time when Jews in Europe were the targets of orchestrated attacks. To see that happen today brings many in the Jewish community back to a trauma that has been passed on intergenerationally," he said. 

The incidents came just days after a separate synagogue in North York was shot at on Monday.

No one was injured in the shootings, according to police in Toronto and York region. Suspects have not yet been identified in connection with the three incidents.

Carr said "there is a very real sense of fear" among the rabbis, community leaders and congregants he spoke to during his visit to the Greater Toronto Area. That unease is being felt in Jewish communities across Canada, Carr said, as antisemitic acts are on the rise. 

In January, the Shaarey Zedek synagogue in Winnipeg and nearby Kelvin High School — both located in Carr's riding — were targeted by antisemitic graffiti. Winnipeg police have charged a 34-year-old man in connection with the incidents.

Police-reported hate crimes against Jewish people in Canada increased by 71 per cent between 2022 and 2023, according to Statistics Canada data. The vast majority of hate crimes targeting a religion over this period were directed at Jewish Canadians, the numbers show.

"It's difficult as a Jew, it's difficult as a member of Parliament and it's difficult as a Canadian. These are serious and real ongoing threats that are being made to the Jewish community, specifically in this country," said Carr.

He said the wider Winnipeg community must speak out against all acts of hate and violence. 

"What we need is there to be an effort led … by members of the community at large who will call these things out, who will demonstrate that this is not the country that they want to live in, whether that attack be against a Jew or a Muslim or a Sikh or a Hindu or a Christian on the basis of their faith," he said.

The Winnipeg Police Services said it's increasing patrols around local synagogues and other Jewish community spaces across the city in the wake of the GTA shootings. 

Winnipeg police called the incidents "deeply concerning" in a social media post on Saturday, calling on Winnipeggers who see anything suspicious to report it to police.