Antisemitic hate crimes in Toronto continue to rise and crimes targeting Jews account for the single biggest category in 2024, a report released ahead of the May 14 police services board meeting shows.
Hate crimes targeting Jewish people have topped the total number of occurrences for three straight years, with 177 reported in 2024, up from 149 in 2023 and 65 in 2022.
Toronto police reported 443 total hate crimes in 2024, up from 327 in 2023, which represents a 19-percent increase.
Religion was the top motivation for hate crimes in 2024, accounting for 46 percent.
The most common offence committed against Jews was mischief, with 148 occurrences, while the highest number of assault, criminal harassment and occurrences of uttering threats were all against 2SLGBTQ+ people.
As of May 6, the Toronto Police Services (TPS) updated the Hate Crimes Dashboard on its Public Safety Data portal website with numbers from its 2024 annual hate crime statistical report. The Hate Crime Unit supplies the data for the reports and statistical updates.
Toronto Police Service Board (TPSB) chair Sandy Murray said in a press release on May 6 that the board will hear a presentation from TPS and consider its report at their monthly meeting on May 14.
“The report indicates that hate crime has generally increased year-over-year since 2019, with a sharp increase of 80 percent in 2023 that commenced immediately following the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel,” Murray wrote.
In a press release May 6 reacting to the newly released numbers, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) emphasized the disproportionate number of hate crimes against the city’s Jews.
“Although the Jewish community represents less than 4 percent of Toronto’s population, anti-Jewish hate crimes accounted for 40 percent of all reported incidents, with 177 occurrences, the majority of which involved acts of mischief,” read the FSWC statement.
In the seven incidents in which police laid charges of public incitement of hatred, six of those “were connected to demonstrations,” FSWC pointed out.
Michael Levitt, president and CEO of the organization, says the “alarming” statistics affirm the reality that “the Jewish community has been feeling on the ground—a deep and rising threat to their safety and a growing sense of fear and unease.”
The report shows 47 percent of all hate crime incidents took place on public streets and transit, followed by educational institutions and businesses or retail spaces, FSWC wrote.
“That the majority of hate crimes occur out in the open tells us that people feel emboldened and unafraid to commit such acts,” said Levitt in the statement.
“We are facing a crisis that should concern everyone and demands immediate and sustained action from all levels of government, law enforcement and civil society.”
Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw’s letter to the board, dated March 31, recommended TPSB accept the 2024 report.
“In 2024, religion, sexual orientation/gender and race/ethnic/national origin were the most frequently targeted bias categories. Anti-Jewish occurrences accounted for 40 percent of the reported hate crimes (177 occurrences),” wrote Demkiw.
(The report, and Demkiw’s discussion of it, are published as part of the meeting agenda for May 14 on the TPSB website.)
Police arrested 115 people for hate-motivated offences in 2024, an increase of 83 percent over the previous year. The majority of those arrested were adult males between the ages of 26 and 40, the report stated. Charges were laid in 22 percent of occurrences in 2024, an increase from 2023 when charges were laid in 17 percent of incidents.
New mandatory “e-learning training modules,” developed and released by Toronto police last year, included one called “Foundations of Judaism & Understanding Antisemitism”, along with “Foundations of Islam & Islamophobia”, the chief wrote.
“These modules provide Service members with foundational knowledge of these religions as well as the importance of allyship and the ongoing impacts of Islamophobia and antisemitism. These courses have been judged to be a great success and are due to be extended to other police services across Canada in 2025.”
He also pointed out the 2024 launch of the dedicated TPS website, and noted the force’s ongoing work to bolster the work of its hate crimes unit.
“In 2024, the Service released the Hate Crime Dashboard to the Public Safety Data Portal. The dashboard promotes transparency and better understanding for community groups with respect to hate crime data. It also provides information on how the Service responds to hate crime and the reporting process,” wrote Demkiw to the police board.
“The H.C.U. continues to engage with communities in meaningful ways and participates in meetings, community meetings, conferences and forums that provide the opportunity to educate and build trust that can provide pathways to increased reporting,” the police chief wrote.
Members of the Hate Crime Unit will be at the May 14 meeting to present the report’s findings and answer board members’ questions, and those from reporters at a media availability that day, a TPS spokesperson wrote to The CJN.
Numbers from the 2023 annual report, released in late July 2024, showed that antisemitism continued to be the single highest category of reported hate crimes in Toronto, accounting for more hate crimes than any other category, Demkiw said at the time, and TPS statistics showed that had been the case both for several months, and the past several years.
