Swastikas painted on Chabad house, billboard

A Richmond Hill synagogue and billboards marking the site of a planned community campus were struck by anti-Semitic vandals last week.

Swastikas and SS lightning bolts were spray-painted in two-foot-high letters on a building housing the congregation of Chabad Lubavitch of Richmond Hill at Bathurst Street and Elgin Mills Road as well as on a sign outside the new Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Jewish Community Campus at Bathurst and Weldrick Road. The incidents took place in the early morning hours between Aug. 31 and Sept.1. Officers gathered evidence at the two crime scenes and Constable Don Yirenkyi of York Regional Police said the events are being treated as related hate crimes.

Rabbi Mendel Bernstein of Chabad Lubavitch Richmond Hill said members of the congregation discovered the graffiti when they arrived for morning prayers. Three of the synagogue’s windows were affected.

Reaction among the congregation was mixed. “We felt it should be reported and it brought to mind minor incidents of jeering when [congregants] walk to shul on shabbes,” he said.

The congregation took the incident “in stride,” he continued. “We figure all it takes is a kid with a spray can. It doesn’t take much more than that.”

Len Rudner, director of community relations for Canadian Jewish Congress, Ontario region, said there was no evidence to link the incident to any other local or international events.

“There are times we can tie spikes in anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim incidents to events in the wide world,” he said, “but these [kind of events] are always going on.

“It’s another day in the life of the Jewish community.”

Rudner noted that about a month ago, eight UJA Federation signs on Bathurst near Highway 401 were also vandalized. Later an individual drew anti-Semitic slogans in chalk on the sidewalk in front of a synagogue in the Bathurst and Lawrence area where several Orthodox Jews were praying. A 32-year old Toronto man has been charged with three counts of mischief in connection with that incident.

Rudner noted that while these sorts of events don’t happen every day, “it’s like a constant drip, drip, drip. It’s corrosive on our community. No community should have to put up with this kind of garbage.”

Anyone with information about the recent incidents is asked to call York Regional Police at 905-881-1221, ext. 7723.