After two incidents of antisemitic vandalism targeted a Chabad center in Guelph, Ontario, Rabbi Raphi Steiner told JNS that he worries his children are growing up in an environment reminiscent of what his Holocaust-survivor grandparents experienced.
The first incident occurred on May 30, when Steiner arrived for Shabbat morning services and discovered graffiti on a front window stating “death to genocidal Israhell.”
The Chabad operates as a synagogue and campus outreach hub serving the University of Guelph community.
“It’s a storefront so when you sit in shul, you’re looking out the window and you’re seeing the graffiti there,” Steiner told JNS. “My 12-year-old son is sitting behind me.”
A second incident occurred earlier this week, when additional graffiti appeared that said, “Zionist dogs stop killing children. The goyim know.”
“I’m the grandchild of Holocaust survivors,” the rabbi told JNS. “We obviously heard stories growing up, and I always imagined what my grandparents must have gone through, maybe sitting at the top of the stairs and listening to their parents discuss, ‘Should we stay or should we go?’”
He worries that his son is growing up in an environment “where he’s davening in shul and looking out the window and wondering why some hater decided it would be a good idea to write on his shul that Jews don’t belong here,” Steiner told JNS.
The rabbi and his wife, Mussie, have three children and lead Chabad programming at the university and in the surrounding community.
There has been an increase in antisemitic incidents since Oct. 7, but “in the last few months, it shifted from anti-Israel stuff to blatantly and far beyond that red line to be simply antisemitic,” according to the rabbi.
“We’ve seen swastikas drawn on Jewish students’ doors and cars,” he told JNS. “We’ve seen students show up at parties at the university with swastikas drawn on themselves. A student did the ‘heil Hitler’ in the square of the university.”
“It’s such horrific things that you think we would never see in Canada or really anywhere,” he said. “It feels like it’s coming back.”
Steiner said that he has received messages of support from members of the university community and local residents, including a retired Christian leader who privately reached out and issued a public letter condemning the vandalism.
“I was very grateful,” Steiner said.
After the first incident, when he opened his computer after Shabbat, Steiner saw messages from people who had passed by and saw the graffiti. “You can graffiti a wall, but you’re not going to intimidate our community,” he told JNS. “We’re here to stay, and we’re only going to grow stronger.”
The incidents come amid a broader rise in antisemitic vandalism targeting Jewish institutions across Canada since Oct. 7, including graffiti, harassment and attacks on synagogues and campus Jewish centers, according to Jewish advocacy groups and law enforcement data.
Steiner told JNS that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent speech announcing an advisory council to investigate antisemitism “left a lot to be desired.”
“We don’t need another committee and another focus group,” he said. “We know what’s happening and what needs to happen is decisive action.”
The Guelph Police Service said that it is investigating both incidents as hate-motivated crimes and has not determined whether they are linked. Police added that the investigation remains ongoing.
Steiner said that police responded promptly. “They’re on it, and they’re good at what they do,” he said.
