Three Halifax, Nova Scotia, synagogues were vandalized with graffiti that included swastikas and claims that Jews were responsible for the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on Saturday night, according to the Shaar Shalom Congregation and other Canadian Jewish groups.
Hebrew school teachers, parents, and students arrived at the Shaar Shalom building on Sunday morning to find a swastika spray-painted over the synagogue’s facade signage.
“Jews did 9/11,” was written on the wall next to the synagogue’s entrance, according to photographs published by the congregation.
The other two synagogues in the Atlantic Canadian city were also vandalized, per the Beth Israel Synagogue and the Chabad-Lubavitch of the Maritimes Rohr Family Institute.
Shaar Shalom said that security footage had been recovered at all three synagogues, capturing the faces of two men.
“This is the first time our synagogue has been vandalized in this way. While we have been subjected to bomb threats that were sent by email to every synagogue in the country, this is a significant escalation for us as Jews in the city. We know we cannot be silent and must call out these hateful acts,” said Shaar Shalom on Facebook.
“We know this is scary news, but we will not be intimidated and kept from prayer.”
Halifax Mayor: 'Attacking places of worship is unacceptable'
Halifax Mayor Andy Fillmore decried the triple defacement acts, saying that “attacking places of worship is unacceptable.”
“We are living in a time when conversations about identity, history, and justice can feel overwhelming and divisive. But we cannot allow that complexity to collapse into hate here at home,” Fillmore said in a statement. “There is no path to peace anywhere that includes bringing fear and division to Halifax.”
Israel’s Ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed, wrote on X/Twitter that the vandalism should be condemned. The diplomat said that he had visited Halifax that weekend and had witnessed not only “blind hate against Jews and Israel” but also the courage to combat the phenomenon.
He thanked Fillmore and Tennis Canada for what he called their bravery to ensure that a Davis Cup tennis match with an Israeli team could be held despite anti-Israel protests.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) and the Atlantic Jewish Council (AJC) noted in a joint statement condemning the vandalism of the three synagogues that this occurred after spectators were banned from the Israel-Canada tennis matches due to safety concerns.
“On the same weekend that extremists silenced fans from cheering on Team Canada, with protesters even publicly displaying the severed head of the Halifax mayor, a Halifax synagogue was defaced with hateful graffiti,” said AJC director Yoram Abisror and CIJA CEO Noah Shack.
“Whether intimidating sports fans, threatening elected officials, or targeting people at their places of worship, this is absolutely unacceptable in Canada – an assault on our core Canadian values.”
In the culmination of a months-long campaign of letters and petitions urging the cancellation of the match, anti-Israel protesters gathered in a park on Friday and Saturday next to the Scotiabank Centre, where the tennis matches were being played.
Speakers slammed Fillmore for allowing the matches to continue, with one effigy of the Canadian politician labeling him “a Zionist puppet.”