A Vaughan, Ontario, man was found guilty of two counts of assault for spitting on a Jewish couple leaving a Toronto-area synagogue after Saturday morning services, the National Post reported on March 25.
On Jan. 6, 2024, Tilda Roll, her husband Malcolm and two other congregants left their synagogue to return home and encountered Kenneth Jeewan Gobin, 35, as he rode at them on his electric bicycle. After one of the men in the group shouted at him for driving erratically, Gobin yelled, “Hitler should have killed you all,” and “you should have died in the Holocaust.”
Gobin then spit on Roll as her husband tried to shield her.
“The proximity has shattered the illusion that you’re safe in your home, you’re safe in your neighborhood, you’re safe on Shabbat,” Roll told the National Post. “It’s shattered and destroyed.”
Another witness of the altercation told police that Gobin, who was on probation at the time for a 2007 carjacking, made a gesture reminiscent of a Nazi salute.
“This recent incident in Vaughan is part of a deeply concerning trend we’ve seen over the past 18 months, with hate crimes and antisemitism rising across Ontario and Canada,” Richard Marceau, vice president of external affairs and general counsel for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, told JNS.
“We urge the court to consider the hate-motivated nature of this crime,” Marceau said. “The sentence must act as both a specific deterrent for the individual and a broader deterrent for the public, sending a clear message that this behavior is unacceptable and has serious consequences.”
Gobin is scheduled to be sentenced on May 8, the same date as Waisuddin Akbari, a Toronto shop owner who, last November, openly expressed his plans to plant “a bomb in every synagogue in Toronto and blow them up to kill as many Jews as possible.”
“Now more than ever, it is important that we make our voices heard through the democratic process,” Marceau told JNS. “With Canada’s first federal election since the Oct. 7 massacre fast approaching, we have a critical opportunity to mobilize our community and ensure we are doing everything possible to protect Jewish life in Canada and safeguard our society as a whole.”