Belleville: An Escalation In Antisemitic Attacks

Canada’s image as a peaceful, stable, tolerant nation is being tarnished, if not shredded, by antisemitic lunatics.

The somber statistics tell the story.

From November 2023 until June 2026, no less than 18 Jewish schools and synagogues in this country were attacked in shootings, firebombings and vandalism, B’nai Brith Canada reports.

In the latest incident, the Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville, Ontario, came under fire during Yom Kippur. The 29-year-old assailant riddled the building with bullets, breaking its stained glass windows, but he hoped to perpetrate a massacre.

From a historical point of view, the events in Belleville are very serious. When antisemitism in this country was at its worst in the first one/third of the 20th century, even antisemitic haters refrained from attacking synagogues.

Luckily, no one was killed or injured in Belleville. A tragedy was averted due to the bravery of Jeff Smith, a policeman who was stationed in front of the shul in an unmarked car. He was critically injured when he stopped the assailant, Sean Ward, from entering the synagogue, which has a membership of some 35 families. Before shooting Smith, Ward was heard yelling, “You are going to die for the Jews.”

A second officer, Mike McCurdy, arrived at the scene and assisted Smith in apprehending Ward, a former soldier in the Canadian forces. Ward, who lived in the nearby town of Quinte West, was armed with multiple firearms, ammunition and gasoline. He died in hospital after succumbing to his wounds.

“This was a deliberate attack directed at members of the Jewish community during one of the holiest observances of the year,” said Belleville’s police chief, Murray Rodd, at a press conference on September 24. “The suspect had the means, the motive and the mechanisms to cause a mass casualty and the destruction of the Jewish synagogue.”

Ward’s rampage could have been far worse, as The Globe and Mail noted in an editorial: “It looks likely that only through a police officer’s heroic actions were the two dozen congregants – and Canada as a whole – spared unfathomable bloodshed, a terrible equivalent to Australia’s Bondi Beach attack last December, where Islam State-inspired terrorist attackers killed 15 people.”

The president of Sons of Jacob, Norm Weddum, agrees with this assessment. “If that police officer had not been there, I probably wouldn’t be talking to you right now,” he told a reporter. “Simple as that.”

The incident in Belleville, The Globe and Mail said, was an escalation in antisemitic violence, “the first synagogue shooting in Canada during (prayer) services.”

Noah Shack, the chief executive officer of the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs, confirmed this. “We’ve seen synagogues and schools subjected to firebombings and shootings. But typically those have taken place under cover of darkness in the middle of the night, intended to intimidate and sow terror. This was fundamentally different in that the gunman chose to target the synagogue at the time of peak attendance, with the objective of murdering as many Jewish people as possible.”

The shooting in Belleville, a town of 55,000 about 170 kilometres east of Toronto, occurred two days after a 19-year-old man, Alexander Parfitt, was arrested in Whitby for allegedly posting online threats to attack a synagogue in southern Ontario.

Richard Marceau, the general counsel and senior vice president of the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs, was neither surprised nor shocked by what transpired. “Unfortunately, in 2026 in Canada, we’ve come to expect this type of thing. It just tells us that the promise of Canada has been broken.”

Prior to Belleville, seven Canadian synagogues were attacked.

Congregation Beth Tikvah, in Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Quebec, was firebombed in November 2023 and again in December 2024.

Bullet holes were found in Young Israel, in Montreal, in May 2024.

The front door of Schara Tzedeck, in Vancouver, was charred in in May 2024 in an apparent arson attack.

The glass entrance of Pride of Israel, in North York, Ontario, was smashed by rocks in June 2024.

Beth Avraham Yoseph, in Vaughan, Ontario, was struck by bullets in March 2026.

Shaarei Shomayim, in Toronto, was hit by gunfire in the same month.

A Molotov cocktail was thrown at Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom, in Westmount, Quebec, this past June.

Jewish schools and Jewish institutions have been attacked as well. Bais Chaya Mushka, an Orthodox girls’ school in North York, was shot at three times in 2024.

Since Hamas’ attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023 and Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip three weeks later, there has been a marked upsurge of global antisemitism.

Canada has not been immune to this wave of anti-Jewish hostility and violence. According to Statistics Canada, 70 percent of religiously motivated hate crimes target the Jewish community, the world’s fourth largest after Israel, the United States and France.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney promptly condemned the shooting in Belleville. “Jewish people must be able to worship safely, to live free, open, proud Jewish lives,” he said.

Yet Marceau believes that Canadian politicians have not sufficiently combated antisemitism. “There has been an all-level failure in the political sector and in law enforcement,” he said. “It is a failure to understand the threats that Jews are facing.”

The Globe and Mail, in its editorial on September 23, concurred with this view: “We seem a step closer to Bondi Beach, but our leaders, for the most part, have not faced up to the dangers. Prime Minister Carney has denounced antisemitism but declined to stand up for the principle behind Zionism, Jewish self-determination in a threatening world. Anti-Zionism has been at the core of the antisemitic problem in Canada and elsewhere since October 7.”

It’s an observation that Canadian politicians, starting with Carney, should take with the utmost seriousness.

In the meantime, B’nai Brith is calling for immediate government action to protect the Jewish community with armed security and an increased police presence at Jewish institutions. “Canada’s Jewish community cannot wait any longer for … government to act,” said chief executive officer Simon Wolle.