Latest news with #CentreforIsraelandJewishAffairs
Winnipeg Free Press
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
Crowns to get training to help prosecute hate crimes
Manitoba Crown attorneys will receive enhanced training on the prosecution of hate crimes as part of a national effort to crack down on racism, discrimination and violence against marginalized groups. The federal and provincial governments are providing $95,000 for the program, which follows the recent arrests of two Winnipeg men charged with separate hate-related offences. 'Hate crimes have devastating impacts on victims and communities, and prosecuting these cases can be complex,' Justice Minister Matt Wiebe said in a news release Thursday. 'Hate crimes have devastating impacts on victims and communities, and prosecuting these cases can be complex,' said Justice Minister Matt Wiebe in a news release Thursday. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Free Press files) 'This specialized training will enhance the knowledge of prosecutors so that they can continue to serve the public interest by effectively prosecuting hate-motivated crimes and holding offenders accountable for the serious harm they cause.' The money will allow Crown attorneys to learn directly from experts who study hate crimes to give them a deeper understanding of their impact on victims and cultural communities. It includes funding for an educational conference, which is to be held in Winnipeg in December, the release said. Manitoba is working with the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg to co-ordinate and support the training, which aligns with Canada's action plan to combat hate. The plan, which was released in the fall, earmarked $273.6 million over the next six years. Sean Fraser, the federal justice minister, said he's 'very pleased' to spend some of the money in Manitoba. 'We know that hate crimes have risen in recent years, and they have had an impact on public safety and social cohesion,' he said in the release. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs has worked with Manitoba Justice and law enforcement officials to co-ordinate the Manitoba Prosecution Service hate crime working group, which was announced in January. 'We've been working… to ensure that when hate crimes occur, charges are laid and every legal avenue is pursued,' vice-president Gustavo Zentner said. In a separate statement, Zentner responded to the arrest of a 23-year-old Winnipeg man accused of hate offences. On Wednesday, police announced Donovan Ballingall had been charged with four counts of the willful promotion of hatred. He's alleged to have targeted the Jewish, Muslim and LGBTTQ+ communities, as well as visible minorities, in online posts. Ballingall was arrested April 29 and remains in custody at the Winnipeg Remand Centre. Court records show he has a court appearance May 26. 'We appreciate the RCMP for handling this case with the seriousness it warrants,' Zentner said in his statement. 'This case is a powerful reminder that hate knows no boundaries.' The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said Ballingall is the first person in Manitoba to be charged with wilfully promoting hate. The Free Press was unable to independently verify that information. Manitoba RCMP deferred comment to its national headquarters in Ottawa, which did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday and Thursday. Police did not provide further details about the offences Ballingall is accused of committing, or confirm whether he acted alone or as part of a group. Tuesdays A weekly look at politics close to home and around the world. In March, the RCMP announced it upgraded charges against another Winnipeg man who was in custody for hate-related offences. Nevin Thunder Young, 19, was charged with two counts of commission of an offence for a terrorist group, and single counts of participation in the activity of a terrorist group and facilitating terrorist activity. The charges are in addition to 26 counts of mischief under $5,000 for incidents in Charleswood from Sept. 28 to Dec. 31, 2024. Investigators linked Young to an international violent extremist group known as M.K.Y., police said at the time. Tyler SearleReporter Tyler Searle is a multimedia producer who writes for the Free Press's city desk. A graduate of Red River College Polytechnic's creative communications program, he wrote for the Stonewall Teulon Tribune, Selkirk Record and Express Weekly News before joining the paper in 2022. Read more about Tyler. Every piece of reporting Tyler produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Global News
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Global News
Assaults, bomb threats, Nazi salutes: Canada's courts are starting to convict those targeting Jews
The surge of crimes against Canada's Jewish community that began after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack and Israeli military response in Gaza has resulted in the first handful of criminal convictions. In February, Omar Elkhodary was convicted of assaulting a woman as he tore down the posters she was putting up on a Toronto street showing children held hostage by Hamas. Waisuddin Akbari, the owner of a Newmarket, Ont., shawarma shop, was convicted of threatening to bomb Toronto's synagogues and 'kill as many Jews as possible,' Global News revealed in March. And on Thursday, Kenneth Gobin was to face sentencing for doing a Nazi salute, spouting Hitler rhetoric and spitting on a Jewish couple walking home from their synagogue in Vaughan, Ont. The trio of cases has caught the attention of national Jewish organizations, which said they would be reading victim impact statements at the sentencing hearings of all three men. A hate crime is more than an attack on an individual, said Richard Marceau, vice-president of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. 'It is made to send a message to an entire community, to make that community feel unsafe.' Antisemitic incidents spiked across Canada after Hamas members attacked southern Israel 19 months ago, killing 1,200 people and taking hundreds more hostage. Since then, Jewish schools, places of worship and businesses have been shot at, torched and threatened, and the RCMP disrupted an alleged plot to bomb a pro-Israel rally on Parliament Hill. 'Caustic protests' have also targeted Jewish institutions, B'nai Brith Canada wrote in a letter last week to Prime Minister Carney, urging him to address the 'crisis of antisemitism.' According to Statistics Canada, incidents of hate crimes against the Jewish community jumped to 900 in 2023, from 527 the previous year. Last year, the number remained high at 816. Advertisement Although comprising just 1 per cent of Canada's population, Jews are by far the top victims of hate crimes against religious groups, accounting for more than two-thirds of incidents, StatsCan data shows. 'The situation has created an atmosphere of fear for the Jewish community that is untenable,' said Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, senior policy director at the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre. The Poster Ripper View image in full screen Posters are taped to a pole in Montreal showing kidnapped Israeli hostages, Tuesday, Nov., 14, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi. CMU One of those incidents took place on Toronto's Yonge Street on Nov. 2, 2023. Vicky Moscoe was putting up posters of children kidnapped by Hamas when a man confronted her. Calling the leaflets 'stupid-ass propaganda,' he ripped them down in front of her. Moscoe told him the children on the posters were hostages, but he was unmoved. When Moscoe put her hand over a poster, he shoved her and knocked her forehead, according to Ontario court verdict, which dismissed Elkhodary's claim he was acting in self-defence. Elkhodary testified that his step-father was Palestinian and his actions were a protest against 'misinformation,' since he considered the flyers 'fabricated' and 'hateful propaganda.' The judge ruled Elkhodary had assaulted Moscoe 'for the purpose of getting her out of the way, effectively to intimidate her so that she would remove her hands from protecting the posters.' 'His goal and purpose was laser-focused; it was to tear down the posters of the children in front of Ms. Moscoe,' the judge said in a decision handed down in the Ontario Court of Justice on Feb. 19. 'The court finds that he did not push the complainant in a purpose related to any self-defence but rather to engage his goal of successfully taking down the posters.' Arrests Continue A Montreal woman was charged last week with uttering threats over an incident allegedly involving the Nazi salute and her use of the term 'final solution' at a pro-Palestinian protest. Toronto police announced in March that Amir Arvahi Azar had been charged with allegedly setting fires outside Toronto synagogues and advocating genocide against Jews. Like many of the incidents since Oct. 7, Azar's case remains ongoing, but the first trials have now ended in convictions, and the accused are being sentenced, starting with Gobin. The Nazi Spitter View image in full screen Rabbi Mendel Kaplanoutside Chabad Flamingo in Thornhill, Ont. Albert Delitala/Global News On March 12, a judge convicted Gobin of assaulting a couple as they were returning home from the Chabad Flamingo synagogue in a Jewish neighbourhood north of Toronto. Advertisement A 35-year-old landscaping and snow removal business operator, Gobin was riding an e-bike on Bathurst Street on Jan. 6, 2024 when he approached Tilda and Malcolm Roll. They were walking with two others. The men were dressed in suits for the Sabbath. As Gobin neared them, he mounted the sidewalk and sped straight at them. The couple jumped out of the way but Gobin then turned around and came back, raised his arm in a Nazi salute and said, 'Heil Hitler,' according to the court decision. 'Hitler should have killed you all,' Gobin continued, the judge ruled. 'Hitler was right.' He then spat on the Rolls before riding down a cul-de-sac and entering a park. 'I remember being shocked,' Tilda Roll told Global News. 'Like he was saying to me, 'You are a worthless human being and I wish that Hitler had killed you in the gas chambers.'' 'That was the messaging,' she said. 'I wasn't going to take that. I was like, 'I'm done, I will see you in court and I will address you,' and so on May 8th, I will be addressing him.' View image in full screen Lawyer Tilda Roll was assaulted while walking home from her Vaughn, Ont. synagogue on Jan. 6, 2024. Handout She said she would read a victim impact statement at Gobin's sentencing hearing Wednesday at the Newmarket courthouse. Jewish advocacy groups intended to do the same. While Gobin testified he had no idea the Rolls were Jews, the judge said he told police immediately following his arrest that they, 'looked like they may have been coming from the synagogue.' 'You see what's going on in the news. Palestinians versus Jews, right?' Gobin told police. 'I guess I'm brown, so maybe they think I'm Palestinian.' He also claimed he was high on cannabis. The judge said Gobin's attack was unprovoked and his testimony about the events was inconsistent, made little sense and was refuted by multiple witnesses. He was convicted of assault. 'I was minding my own business,' Roll said. 'I was worshiping the Sabbath. I came home from synagogue, and this individual chose to confront me, to spit at me, to say hateful things.' 'It was just a random occurrence on a Saturday that could have happened anywhere to anybody. And because it happened to me and because I'm a lawyer and because I know the legal system, I decided I was gonna stand up for myself.'
Fox News
12-04-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Netanyahu slams Carney's reply to anti-Israel agitator who said there's a 'genocide' in Gaza
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney after he seemed to validate an anti-Israel protester's assertion that there is a "genocide" in Gaza. "Canada has always sided with civilization. So should Mr. Carney. But instead of supporting Israel, a democracy that is fighting a just war with just means against the barbarians of Hamas, he attacks the one and only Jewish state. Mr. Carney, backtrack your irresponsible statement," Netanyahu wrote in a post on X. Carney was at a rally in Calgary, Alberta, when someone in the crowd shouted, "Mr. Carney, there's a genocide happening in Palestine!" In response, Carney thanked the protester and said, "I'm aware, which is why we have an arms embargo" as the crowd began chanting his name. The response sparked an uproar among Canadian Jewish organizations, such as the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), which tweeted an objection to Carney's comments. CIJA also criticized Canada's arms restrictions on Israel, calling them "dangerous." "It is outrageous to see politicians fuel antisemitism through false narratives of demonization," CIJA tweeted. "There is no genocide in Gaza. Claiming otherwise is false." Hampstead Mayor Jeremy Levi, a member of Canada's Conservative Party, also condemned Carney's remarks, calling them a "disgraceful betrayal of moral clarity." "By siding with a heckler and endorsing the false, slanderous claim of 'genocide' in Israel, he has shown himself unworthy of leadership or respect." When asked to clarify his comments, Carney claimed he did not hear the protester say the word "genocide." "It's noisy. If you're up there you hear snippets of what people say and I heard Gaza, and my point was I'm aware of the situation in Gaza," he said, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Canada began halting arms sales to Israel in January 2024. Months later, in September 2024, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said that she had suspended the permits of multiple companies over a U.S. plan to sell Canadian-made ammo to Israel. She said that Canada would "not have any form of arms or parts of arms be sent to Gaza, period."
CBC
09-04-2025
- CBC
Montreal man faces arson-related charges in connection with synagogue firebombing
A 19-year-old man has been charged in the firebombing of a Montreal-area synagogue in December. Mohamed Ilyess Akodad faces two arson-related charges, two counts of attempted arson, one count of destruction of property and one count of possession of incendiary material. The charges relate to a Dec. 18 fire at the Congregation Beth Tikvah in a suburb of Montreal, which caused minor damage to the synagogue. Police at the time reported broken glass and damage to the door of the synagogue, as well as smoke damage, and a smashed glass door at the nearby offices of Federation CJA, a Jewish community group. The incident in Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Que., was widely condemned, including by then prime minister Justin Trudeau, who called it "a vile antisemitic attack against Montreal's Jewish community." Akodad pleaded not guilty during a virtual appearance at the Montreal courthouse on Wednesday, and is scheduled to appear again on Thursday to discuss next steps. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs welcomed news of the arrest. "Now, it is up to prosecutors to responsibly proceed with this case focused on maximizing its deterrent effect," said Eta Yudin, the organization's vice-president for Quebec "It must be made clear that the hateful targeting of the Jewish community has serious consequences." Montreal police say the suspect was arrested in the Montreal borough of Anjou, and investigators seized evidence during a search of a home.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Jewish group launches Passover-themed election awareness campaign
OTTAWA — How is this election different from all other elections? That's the question being posed by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs ahead of this month's federal election, seeking to raise exposure of issues deemed important by Canada's Jewish community. As this year's federal election takes place adjacent to the Jewish holiday of Passover, CIJA's hoping Jewish Canadians and their allies will ask four questions of their local candidates — echoing the custom of the youngest child during a Passover Seder posing four questions to the rest of the table. 'This campaign came about because it's been a really challenging 18 months for the Jewish community,' said CIJA's interim president Noah Shack. 'With skyrocketing antisemitism across Canada, people marching through the streets calling for Jews to be sent back to Europe, for Jewish communities to be destroyed, where schools have been shot at repeatedly, synagogues firebombed repeatedly, people chanting slogans supporting terrorist organizations, while at the same time burning Canadian flags.' Ottawa Hamas cosplayers spark concern from mayor's office Jewish community outraged over Toronto Police podcast on Oct. 7, anti-Israel rallies The initiative is part of CIJA's 'More Than Just a Vote' campaign. The Oct. 7, 2023 terror attacks saw Palestinian terrorists conduct a campaign of murder, kidnapping and sexual assault against innocent Israeli men, women and children — and touched off an unprecedented and well-managed campaign of anti-Jewish hatred right here in Canada. The 'four questions' CIJA hopes to get answers on involve what candidates would do to guarantee the physical safety of the Jewish community, holding those accountable who spread hatred against Jews, strengthening Canadian-Israeli ties, and enduring the future of Jews in Canada. 'We're encouraging members of the community to go out and meet with their candidates, to email their candidates, phone their candidates and ask them what they'll do to stand up for the community on those four issues,' Shack said. More information can be found on the More Than Just a Vote website at bpassifiume@ X: @bryanpassifiume
