by Joseph Marshall
Montreal’s Jewish community is demanding arrests, prosecutions and consequences after two locations of a Jewish-owned Toronto bakery chain were targeted overnight, one by gunfire.
Toronto police were called to Kiva’s Bagel Bar near Yonge Street and St. Clair Avenue West shortly after 8 a.m. Sunday after a window was struck by gunfire. Investigators found evidence that a firearm had been discharged. Less than half an hour later, police were called to another Kiva’s location near Bathurst Street and Steeles Avenue West, where the glass in the front door had been smashed. Police said there was no evidence that a firearm was used in the second incident. No one was injured. The Hate Crime Unit and Integrated Gun and Gang Task Force are investigating whether the incidents are connected and working to identify those responsible.
“Another day, another Jewish business targeted,” Rabbi Saul Emanuel, executive director of the Jewish Community Council of Montreal, said in a statement Sunday.
Emanuel said the absence of casualties should not diminish the seriousness of the attacks and warned that Jewish businesses are not being selected by accident.
“This is the predictable consequence of an environment in which antisemitism has been allowed to fester, where calls for intimidation are too often dismissed as activism, and where those who target Jews increasingly believe they can do so with impunity,” he said.
Emanuel said the Jewish community is exhausted by expressions of concern that are not followed by arrests or criminal consequences.
“Condemnations matter, but arrests, prosecutions, and consequences matter more,” he said. “We urge law enforcement to identify those responsible without delay and ensure that the full force of the law is brought to bear against them.”
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said the attacks should concern every Canadian, describing the bakeries as places where families gather. CIJA connected the incidents to what it called a wider rise in violent extremism across Canada and other Western countries, fuelled by “antizionist rhetoric, local criminal elements, Iranian-backed proxies, and ISIS-inspired terrorism.”
“Our leaders must be unequivocal: nothing justifies attacks on Canadians,” CIJA said. “They must also ensure police and security agencies have the resources they need to protect our communities and keep Canadians safe.”
B’nai Brith Canada described the incidents as part of a “relentless and escalating campaign of antisemitic intimidation” targeting Jewish schools, synagogues, community institutions, businesses and families across the country. The organization called on the federal government to establish a national task force to coordinate the response, investigate possible connections to extremist or foreign-backed networks and pursue terrorist listings where the legal criteria are met.
“Jewish Canadians cannot continue to be left to secure their own schools, synagogues, community institutions and businesses against escalating threats,” B’nai Brith said. “The question is no longer whether Canada has an antisemitism crisis. The question is why our governments do not seem to have the resolve to confront it.”
The warnings carry particular weight in Montreal, where Jewish-owned businesses have repeatedly been vandalized or attacked. In March, swastikas were painted on a pharmacy, a kosher butcher shop and the kosher restaurant Gourmetti in Saint-Laurent. Montreal police described the markings as hate-related graffiti and referred the investigation to the hate crimes unit. No arrests were announced.
A month earlier, an anti-Jewish slur and a Star of David were written across the window of Maestro SVP, a restaurant on Saint-Laurent Boulevard owned by Ilene Polansky, who is Jewish. Polansky said there was little outside the restaurant identifying her as Jewish other than a mezuzah at the entrance.
In June 2024, small holes were found in the window of Falafel Yoni, a Jewish-owned Israeli restaurant in Mile End. Police did not determine whether the holes were caused by bullets or another projectile and did not establish a motive. The restaurant had appeared on an online boycott list identifying businesses accused of supporting Israel.
Two kosher businesses in Saint-Laurent were also targeted in attempted arsons within two weeks in June 2021. The front door of Chez Benny Express was smashed and an attempt was made to start a fire inside. Montreal Kosher Bakery was targeted days later when a window was broken and a heat source was found inside. The incidents were investigated, although police had not formally classified the bakery attack as a hate crime at the time of the initial reporting.
Emanuel said Montreal’s Jewish community stands with the owners and employees of Kiva’s and with Toronto’s Jewish community.
“An attack on one Jewish business is an attack on all of us,” he said.
He questioned whether Canadians would continue debating the existence of a crisis if businesses belonging to another minority community were repeatedly vandalized, firebombed, shot at and threatened because of who owned them.
“Canada cannot claim to be a country where everyone is free to live in safety while Jews continue to require extraordinary security simply to operate businesses, send their children to school, or gather in their places of worship,” Emanuel said.
“Enough is enough.”
