The 88-year-old man who was assaulted at a pro-Israel rally in Toronto on Aug. 18 says he will return to the weekly demonstration, despite the cuts and bruises he sustained in the attack.
“Absolutely, most decidedly so,” Joel Sacke, a retired accountant, said when asked if will return to the rallies held at Bathurst Street and Sheppard Avenue every Sunday since Oct. 8. “None of us are running away. Oh no, we’re there and we will be there and we will continue to be there.
“I don’t believe in violence. I think it is such a useless tactic, it achieves nothing. So all that they have done by this senseless attack is to more than ever solidify the Jewish community.”
- PODCAST: Three arrested after an 88-year-old Jewish man was attacked at a pro-Israel rally in Toronto
Sacke was participating in the rally when a car came close to the sidewalk where he was standing and the passenger rolled down the window and grabbed the Israeli flag he was waving.
“It all happened so quickly. She opened the door and I thought, “oh good, I’ve got my flag back.’ Instead, I got a punch in the head and a push and a kick and thrown to the ground. And that was silly me, thinking I was getting the flag back.”
A video shows Sacke lying on the pavement, his head landing inches from a city bus that had stopped.
“Thank God I’m in one piece, no broken bones, and we carry on.”
Police have said that three people were arrested in the incident, but have not identified them or specified what charges were laid.
“These types of investigations are very complex and sometimes require more time to compile all the details,” Toronto Police Services said in an email to The CJN.
Sacke suffered scratches and cuts on his arms and legs and bruises where he was punched or kicked. He was taken to hospital after the assault and is recovering at home.
A police officer and a representative from the Hate Crimes Unit interviewed him when he was in in hospital, and said they would contact him for a formal statement, but as of Thursday, he had had not heard from them.
“It’s been depressing and upsetting, to say the least,” Sacke said about the assault. “Anyhow, I’m getting better. It’s a process, it takes time.”
Guidy Mamann, organizer of the weekly rally, says it has been going on for 45 weeks, since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, without any incident.
While pro-Palestinian protesters have appeared on the opposite corner, Mamann urges people not to engage with them.
“People who show up with inappropriate signs are told they have to put the sign away, or they cannot stay. If they carry flags that are not appropriate, we tell them that could trigger violence, we’re not interested. And that’s why we have seniors, we have women, we have children, we have rabbis from Chabad. We have all kinds of people who come. They put on tefillin. They do all kinds of things peacefully for 45 weeks,” Mamann told The CJN Daily podcast host Ellin Bessner.
The incident was an “aberration,” he said, but it was also indicative of the hatred that he sees in the city, directed toward Jews.
Sacke spends his Sundays attending two different rallies for Israel. First, he visits the rally at the Promenade Mall, where he is known for shouting “Am Yisrael Chai,” as the rally concludes. Then he hops in his car, which sports an Israeli flag, and drives to Bathurst and Sheppard, where he joins about 100 people who weekly wave Israeli and Canadian flags and sing Hebrew songs.
The Israeli flag has generated some opposition, he says, “I’ve had a few people shout at me and give me the finger. I just smile and laugh and carry on my way.”
Sacke spent his 88th birthday last month in Israel, volunteering with Sar-El, a program that places people on IDF bases for logistical support. This time he was based in Be’er Sheva packing food and medical kits for soldiers going to Gaza.
It was his ninth time volunteering with the organization, but unfortunately his last, because they have instituted an upper age limit. Sacke thinks it’s a bit ridiculous though, saying “an 80-year-old does just as much, if not more, than a 28-year-old.”
Undeterred, he says he will look for other opportunities to contribute in Israel.
“I’m a committed Zionist. I believe very, very much in the State of Israel and it’s a home for the Jewish people. Whatever I can do to reinforce that belief, I do it.” Meanwhile in Canada, he’s continuing to volunteer.
After speaking with The CJN, he was heading to an evening shift with B’nai Brith’s clothing drive.
Sacke says his grown kids aren’t enamoured with all his activities.
“I know they don’t always approve of what I do and they say it’s a bit risky and I’m taking chances, but I know that they are there behind me, to support me.”
His daughter Dena Scolnik was at work when she got the call had been injured. She was first told he had been hit by a car, which wasn’t true, and then she was told he had been punched.
“It was horrendous,” she says when she learned what had happened to her father. “I play this incident over and over in my head and I wasn’t there.
“He was definitely traumatized by the event, as was the whole community.”
Her father—who now works as a crossing guard to keep busy, tutors immigrants and also takes Broadway dancing lessons—is a modest person, who does not want people to make a fuss over him, she says.
“He’s trying very hard to be very, very brave. This could have been so much worse, and yet it’s so tragic that this happened.”
For his part, Sacke says he’s been overwhelmed by the support he’s received after the assault. He’s received hundreds of messages from around the world, from his Sar-El companions and from people he doesn’t even know.
“This outpouring of support has been absolutely overwhelming. It just shows what the Jewish community in the world are like. How we’re there for each other, and we’re there for Israel and we’re there for the Jewish people. “
- PODCAST: Three arrested after an 88-year-old Jewish man was attacked at a pro-Israel rally in Toronto
