By Chad Lipnick
A new online database linking Toronto Jewish schools, synagogues and summer camps to Canadians who served in the Israel Defense Forces is triggering alarm across the community, with advocacy groups warning that the project could function as a “catalogue for hostile actors” at a time of record antisemitic violence in Canada.
The database, titled GTA to IDF, was published last week by The Maple, a small reader funded outlet whose editorial team has drawn controversy for years over its hostile framing of Israel and its soldiers. The project names seven mainstream Jewish institutions in the Greater Toronto Area, outlines each one’s supposed “connections” to the IDF, and cross-references them with a separate Maple run site called Find IDF Soldiers, which profiles 206 Canadians who have served in the Israeli military.
The Maple insists the information is “all public,” that the list is not intended to encourage harassment, and that it is not accusing the institutions of wrongdoing. But Jewish organizations say the effect is unmistakable: a curated public map of community institutions at a moment when synagogues, schools and elderly housing have been firebombed, shot at and vandalized from coast to coast.
“Jewish institutions in Canada have been shot at, fire bombed, smashed and terrorized,” said B’nai Brith Canada’s manager of research and advocacy, Austin Parcels. “Publishing a database that treats Jewish identity as incriminating gives people who want to harm these institutions the ammunition they are looking for.”
The seven listed institutions include Associated Hebrew Schools, Bnei Akiva Schools, TanenbaumCHAT, Camp Ramah, Camp Moshava, Shaarei Shomayim and Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto. The Maple labels these institutions “associated” with IDF members if an individual once attended, worked at or spoke at the site—regardless of whether the school or synagogue endorsed the soldier or even knew of the connection.
Jewish leaders say the framing is not subtle. The Maple’s earlier project, Find IDF Soldiers, was launched in February with 85 names and has since expanded to more than 200 profiles. That list was reported to the RCMP as a potential security threat, prompting a national security file to be opened before the case was ultimately deemed non criminal. The new GTA database is an escalation: instead of listing people, it now maps institutions, many of them geared toward children.
“It is shameful,” said University of Toronto economics professor Joseph Steinberg, who is not Jewish but lives in a neighbourhood dense with synagogues and Jewish schools. “Every holiday and every October 7 anniversary, they all require heavy security just to prevent vandalism or violence. This is the climate in which this database appears.”
CIJA’s senior vice president, Richard Marceau, warned that the list comes on the heels of deadly attacks on Jewish communities abroad, including recent killings in Manchester, Melbourne and Boulder. “These are places where children learn, families gather and people pray,” he said. “Compiling them into a searchable list carries dangerous implications for Canadians.”
Some institutions named in the database dismissed its impact but not its tone. Becky Friedman, spokesperson for Associated Hebrew Schools, called it “blatantly antisemitic,” adding that her school is “proud to be part of a community that supports Israel.”
Rabbi N. Daniel Korobkin of BAYT said the project may be intended to intimidate, but it will not. “We could not be prouder of our children and students,” he said. “These young men and women are our heroes.”
What frustrates many in the community is The Maple’s posture of neutrality layered over clear ideological messaging. The Maple’s opinion editor and database creator, Davide Mastracci, has used social media to praise “Palestinian resistance” on October 7 and to express admiration for Hamas supporters. Jewish groups argue that mapping Canadian Jewish institutions in this political context is not investigative journalism—it is provocation wrapped in footnotes.
The timing adds urgency. Canada recorded 6,219 antisemitic incidents last year, the highest in history, with shootings at Jewish schools in Toronto, synagogues firebombed in Montreal, Jewish seniors harassed in housing complexes, and mobs of protesters forcing multiple lockdowns at educational institutions.
In that environment, Jewish leaders say, a list like this does not live in abstraction. It lives in the hands of whoever chooses to use it.
