Canada came “razor-close” to what could have been “one of the worst mass-casualty events in Canadian history” and the “utter decimation of a small Jewish community” when a gunman opened fire outside a synagogue in Belleville, Ontario, on Yom Kippur, a survivor of the attack said on Monday.
“Even now, I have to admit that it’s difficult to think back to the events in the past month, and causes me and others, I’m sure, a great deal of pain, as the scene that we witnessed inside the synagogue continues to play over and over in my head,” Shima Vigodda, vice president of the Sons of Jacob Synagogue, which was targeted on Sept. 20, said at a press conference on Parliament Hill.
“Hearing the shots, yelling for people to get down, hearing the glass breaking and screams, watching parents hold their children, seeing the fear and panic on people’s faces, not knowing what the next moment would bring,” Vigodda said.
Vigodda spoke about six weeks after the attempted mass shooting, in which Sean Ward, 29, of Quinte West, Ontario, opened fire with a shotgun outside the synagogue, as congregants gathered for High Holiday services.
Const. Jeff Smith, of the Belleville Police Service, died in the hospital on Sept. 21, after sustaining serious injuries in the gunfire exchange. No congregant was injured.
Chris Malette, a Liberal parliamentarian representing Bay of Quinte, which is about 120 miles east of Toronto, who has lived in Belleville for 47 years, praised the officers who confronted Ward.
“It was only but for divine intervention, as the solicitor general said, that the officers were there on site to truly save what would have been, I think by all accounts, a massacre,” Malette said.
The press conference, organized by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the advocacy arm of the Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA, was held three days before the Canadian finance minister is scheduled to unveil the federal budget in the House of Commons and days after the government released a national security strategy that addresses emerging threats, including violent extremism and radicalization.
At the press conference, Vigodda and Noah Shack, CEO of CIJA, called on the federal government to strengthen the Canada Community Security Program, which helps institutions at risk of hate crimes pay for security improvements and to invest in counter-radicalization efforts.
The federal program covers up to 70% of eligible security-project costs, leaving institutions responsible for the remaining expenses, according to the Canadian government.
Vigodda said that before the shooting, the synagogue’s security priorities included replacing damaged windows and installing burglar alarms. The congregation now needs substantially more expensive protections, including bullet-resistant glass, reinforced doors, fencing, a safe room and security personnel.
For smaller communities, the cost of such improvements can present an “agonizing and sometimes impossible choice,” he said.
For survivors of the attack, the events of that night seemed to follow a series of “warning signs” of antisemitism, even in Belleville, a city whose metropolitan area has more than 110,000 people, including 210 Jews by religion and 355 ethnic Jews, according to the 2021 Canadian census.
Sons of Jacob Synagogue, a Conservative congregation that is the only Jewish house of worship in the wider Quinte region, has about 60 members, according to its website. Many Jews who are not members join for holidays and special occasions, it says.
“Long before Sept. 20, we witnessed Holocaust denial, conspiracy theories about Jewish power and control and hateful images and centuries-old stereotypes designed to dehumanize the Jewish people circulating openly in local social media groups,” said Douglas Lobel, who was in the synagogue with his wife when shots rang out.
“We witnessed a protest outside our synagogue and witnessed an event presented as an interfaith summit in Belleville where statements were made about supposed Jewish power,” he said at the press conference.
Antisemitic incidents continued after the shooting, according to Lobel. Flyers appeared in the community and near the synagogue just days after the attack, blaming Jews for things like the COVID pandemic and abortions, he said.
“A visiting member of Parliament reported that someone shouted an antisemitic slur at him as he left our synagogue, and police have also laid hate-related charges in another separate investigation,” Lobel said.
Lobel’s children were not at the synagogue that night, but the shooting has had a lasting impact on them, he said.
“The gunfire stopped, but the fear and realization of what could happen to their parents did not simply disappear,” he said. “My ancestors fled pogroms in Eastern Europe because they believed Canada could offer their children a future free of persecution.”
“I refuse to accept that my own children should inherit the very fear that they fled,” he said. “No child should have to wonder whether their parents will survive going to pray.”
The gunman’s final words were “you will die for the Jews,” according to Shack of CIJA.
His words were a “stark reminder that radicalization and violent extremism endanger all communities and our Canadian way of life,” Shack said.
He added that the attack followed a series of foiled terror plots in Canada, several of which targeted Jews.
In Ottawa, two teens were convicted of terror-related offenses in a plot to attack a pro-Israel rally on Parliament Hill, and in Toronto, authorities arrested a father and son in 2024 on suspicion of planning an ISIS-inspired attack, Shack said.
In 2026, Muhammad Shahzeb Khan pleaded guilty to terror charges in the United States. He was arrested in Quebec in 2024, when he was 20, for planning a mass shooting at a Jewish center in Brooklyn.
At the press conference, Shack also said that a minor was arrested in Montreal in August 2025 for allegedly planning an ISIS-inspired attack against Jews and police, according to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
“Belleville should be the final wake-up call,” he said.
“We’re living in an environment where lies and conspiracies about Jews and Israelis, from Covid to Gaza, are exploited to target Canadians,” he said. “An environment within which Canada’s security agencies warn that, as this targeting becomes more frequent, it will influence susceptible individuals towards more violent acts.”
Thursday’s federal budget will be an “opportunity for the government to build on its new national strategy by investing in counter-radicalization, intelligence and counterterrorism,” Shack said.
“That’s why our organization has called on the federal government to renew and strengthen the national strategy on countering radicalization to violence,” he said.
The issue extends beyond Canada’s Jewish community, according to Shack.
“It’s about the police officers placed in harm’s way,” he said. “It’s about entire neighborhoods in the crossfire.”
“It’s about ensuring that we stop those who seek to weaken and divide us and address the threat they pose to public safety, social cohesion and democratic values,” he said.
