Prime Minister Paul Martin and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty yesterday joined a chorus of condemnation of anti-Semitism as the Toronto area was hit by a rash of anti-Jewish vandalism for the second weekend in a row.
This past weekend, described by one Jewish leader as "a weekend of hate" aimed at the Jewish community, was capped by the actions of unknown vandals who knocked over 22 gravestones in Bathurst Lawn Memorial Park on Saturday night or Sunday morning.
At a press conference at the cemetery held only two hours after the desecration of the graves was discovered, Ontario Attorney-General Michael Bryant told reporters that "it's just unbelievable that this could happen in Canada, but it has. This campaign of hate against the Jewish community must stop, and will stop.
"We will be prosecuting to the fullest extent of the law. We want to make sure the people pay for this, and we want to make sure that we send out a deterrent and a message to anybody who wants to engage in a campaign of hate like this that you are going to pay the price."
Police Chief Julian Fantino said: "This is a very dastardly, heinous crime, a very serious crime. It isn't just mischief. It's the desecration of what is enshrined, the respect that we pay to our dead. It's just a vicious intent to create hate in a community and it's not a kids' thing. Anybody who's doing this is involved in a very, very serious criminal activity."
On Saturday, three other anti-Semitic acts of vandalism were discovered only a few blocks away from the cemetery, which is on Bathurst Street near Steeles Avenue.
"It [the cemetery attack] falls on the heels of some other hate crime activity that we discovered -- and are investigating -- yesterday, and . . . no doubt is connected to hate crime occurrences that have taken place in York Region over the last little while," Chief Fantino said.
Swastikas were painted on the walls and seven stained glass windows were broken at the Pride of Israel synagogue on Lissom Crescent. Two windows were broken at the Joseph and Faye Tanenbaum Educational Centre on Patricia Avenue. And seven swastikas and profanities were painted on United Jewish Appeal signs and a swastika on a clothing donation box at the B'nai Torah Community Centre, adjacent to the Patricia Avenue school.
On the previous weekend in nearby Thornhill, swastikas and anti-Semitic messages were sprayed on front doors, cars and garages of 13 houses in a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood.
In a letter sent Friday to the Canadian Jewish Congress, which was released yesterday, Mr. Martin said that those who vandalized the houses in Thornhill must be condemned loudly by those who oppose racism and anti-Semitism.
"As Prime Minister, I condemn them. As a Canadian, as a human being, I condemn them," he said.
Mr. McGuinty said in a statement after the damage to the graves had been discovered yesterday that "cowardly acts such as these are despicable to Ontario. It is everyone's duty to speak out and take action when racism and hate crime raise their ugly heads."
And at a special ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the Holocaust in Hungary, Irving Roth, 74, one of those who survived the Hungarian Holocaust, said that authorities must act quickly and aggressively to put a stop to the recent hatred. "Anti-Semitism to me is like cancer. Once you have it, you have to be vigilant," Mr. Roth said.
Chief Fantino said police have been put on a special alert to pay close attention to Jewish establishments, community centres, schools and cemeteries. The Toronto investigation will be integrated and co-ordinated with York Region's investigation of the earlier incidents.
Bernie Farber, the Ontario executive director of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said that "it's not difficult to knock over a gravestone, but to knock over 22 of them takes a lot of rage. . . . There are sick, depraved cowards, anti-Semitic cowards, who come to a cemetery where people obviously cannot fight back."
Mr. Farber also said that "the irony of it all is that today [Sunday] is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. . . . That it would happen on this day speaks volumes to all the work that we still must do to educate and to spread the word that all of us are in this together. It will take nothing short of a huge communal effort to demonstrate our strength against haters."
Mr. Farber also announced that there will be a rally against hate crimes at the Leah Posluns Theatre at 4588 Bathurst St. on Wednesday.
