On Sunday Night a gunman opened fire on the Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville in Ontario, Canada. It was Erev Yom Kippur, the evening marking the start of the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. This is the festival when synagogue attendance is at its highest. The attack has echoes of the 2019 Yom Kippur attack on a synagogue in Halle, Germany.
A police officer, Constable Jeff Smith, was “providing a proactive presence in an area of the synagogue” and encountered a man armed with a shotgun. The man began shooting at the officer after he attempt to apprehend him. The officer returned fire. According to the President of the Synagogue, Norm Weddum, in an interview with CBC, the officer was in an unmarked car in the synagogue’s parking lot at the side of the building and the attacker was approaching the synagogue. The bullet holes in the synagogue windows support this. Police have not confirmed the synagogue was the target and have so far released very little information as the investigation continues.
Constable Jeff Smith was shot. The gunman, later identified by police as 29-year-old Sean Ward of Quinte West, was also shot. Constable Smith is in hospital in a critical but stable condition. Ward, who CBC have reported is a former member of the Canadian Military, is in hospital with life-threatening injuries. While the synagogue’s windows were pierced by flying bullets, no one inside was injured.
Online responses to the attack included posts supportive of violence targeting the Jewish community and regretting the lack of casualties among the Jewish worshippers.
4Chan
On 4chan’s Politically Incorrect forum /pol/ (a source of radicalisation in the 2019 Halle attack) posters self-identifying as Americans described the Belleville attack as “beautiful” and that the news “made my day”. Another self-identified American poster complained, “No Jews were killed or even injured” and suggested this meant it was a Jewish scheme. Another claimed it was a false flag, blaming Israel’s intelligence service Mossad for the attack.
X (Twitter)
On X, a user self identifying as Canadian called it a false flag, blaming Israel for the attack. Another X user, likely from the UK, called the attacker “based”, a term signifying approval and presenting the attacker as courageous, and which we previously saw used on /pol/ after the shooting of a synagogue in Poway, California, in 2019. Such glorification of extremists can lead to copycat attacks. Another user claimed Jews had faked the attack – a trend we saw after attacks on Jewish (Hatzolah) ambulances in London, attacks on synagogues in Melbourne, Australia, and the Bondi Beach attack.
Another X user claimed the attack was fake, this time using the language of “Zionists” as code for Jews. They also referenced the Dural Caravan plot in Australia as evidence that attacks on Jews weren’t real. The Dural Caravan plot was found by police to be a fabricated terrorism plot concocted by criminals, who sought to trade information on it for reduced sentences. The fear it caused in the Jewish community was quite real and police references to it as a “hoax” have had an unfortunate effect, feeding conspiracy theories.
Another post on X described it as an “obvious Zionist psyop”, again blaming Jews for an attack on synagogue using coded language and leaning into antisemitic conspiracy theories.
On Facebook there is again a claim hate crimes are faked. Another user suggests that Canada’s own intelligence service might be behind it, pushing the same form of conspiracy theory that lead to the claim 9/11 was an inside job by the CIA. A pro-Palestinian account claim Israel must be behind it, trying to falsely keep antisemitism high to ensure support. Another simply claimed Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, was behind it. These are the same claims seen after attacks on Jewish targeted in Australia (Bondi Beach and Melbourne synagogues) and London. They are particularly strong following attacks instigated by Iran, and it is likely this conspiracy narrative is part of an Iranian information warfare strategy, or echoed by those who have seen that material.
On YouTube a news report on the incident was met with the comment “The painter was right”, a reference to Hitler which glorifies the Holocaust and efforts to kill Jews. Another News report on the attack received the comment “False flag”. A third, the comment “Inside job” – blaming the Jewish community itself. A fourth news video received comments claiming it was a psyop and a false flag.
News video:
Comment on this video:
The second video:
The comment on this video:
The third news video:
And the comment on it:
The fourth video:
The comment on it:
These examples are just a fraction of the content the Online Hate Prevention Institute has collected since the attack. This is not just an attack on the Jewish community, it is an attack on religious freedom and on the values Canada, and Australia, hold dear.
The content we have documented, which seeks to celebrate the attack, glorify efforts to murder of Jews, deny that attacks on Jews are real, and blame the victims, are all part of a growing narrative positioning Jews as collectively responsible for the vilification and violence inflicted upon them.
This narrative is fed and exacerbated by social media systems that thrive on conflict and conspiracy theories, and leveraged by foreign actors. Rather than the unity and empathy we might expect, we have hate, radicalisation, and violent extremism.
Governments cannot afford to separate efforts to protect physical safety from efforts to combat growing online threats.