A 38-year-old man from the Greater Toronto Area has been charged with uttering threats after he told police officers at the weekly Sunday gatherings at Bathurst Street and Sheppard Avenue on Feb. 2 that he was a member of Kahane Chai, which is a recognized terror entity in Canada.
The man “approached a police officer and claimed to be a member of the Kahane Chai (Kach), an enlisted terrorist entity by Public Safety Canada” and “expressed anger towards counter-demonstrators and made threatening utterances to cause grievous harm,” according to Toronto Police Services (TPS).
Officers executed a Criminal Code search warrant at the man’s home the following day, and seized a .357 magnum lever action rifle and scope and 10 boxes of .357 magnum ammunition. Police also found and seized “clothing branded with the Kahane Chai name and crest” and a “soft-body armour vest.”
Eli Schwarz of Vaughan, Ont., has been charged with uttering threats and careless storage of ammunition, and was scheduled to appear in court Feb. 4. Another court appearance, via video on the morning of Feb. 6, was scheduled as a bail hearing/show cause.
News Release – Man Arrested at Demonstration for Uttering Threats, Bathurst Street and Sheppard Avenue Westhttps://t.co/42eqlYmrrJ pic.twitter.com/VPVTAj7yRw
— Toronto Police (@TorontoPolice) February 4, 2025
In its announcement of the arrest, TPS said the investigation was ongoing. (The CJN reached out to Schwarz for comment but did not receive a response.)
Speaking to reporters in the past, police have said that the display of a sign or symbol of a banned terror group, on its own, without any other criminal or illegal activity, does not necessarily lead to charges. However, in October, TPS arrested two people on public incitement of hatred charges following a protest in late September where they continued to display the flag of Hezbollah despite officers’ warnings.
The two-hour rally, held rain or shine, has been taking place weekly on Sunday afternoons for more than 70 weeks, starting in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. Organizers have pledged to continue the gathering until all Israeli hostages have been freed from captivity in Gaza.
What began as a handful of people waving Israeli and Canadian flags outside a shopping plaza in the heart of a Jewish neighbourhood has escalated with an ongoing Sunday counter-protest by pro-Palestinian groups, fuelling a competition between two sides for sidewalk space, chants, and sound systems.
Kahane Chai (Kach) was listed by Public Safety Canada as a terrorist group in 2005, with that status remaining in place on the list following a review in 2024, according to the agency’s website. The group’s flag (in yellow and black) and that of a linked group, the Jewish Defense League (JDL)—which reportedly is not a functioning organization in Canada—both feature a logo of a raised fist inside a Star of David.
The branded flags and other items of clothing have been seen at the weekly rally, with police reportedly asking those with the symbol to put it away.
Vocal supporters of Israel are quick to point out that symbols of Hamas or other banned entities that may be present among counter-protesters haven’t always resulted in a decisive action from police during demonstrations to put those symbols away, as protest watcher Caryma Sa’d told The CJN in December about the weekly demonstrations.
Pro-Israel protester wears hat emblazoned with Jewish Defence League (JDL) logo.
— Caryma Sa'd – Lawyer + Political Satirist (@CarymaRules) December 30, 2024
Over the past several weeks, police have asked people to refrain from displaying this symbol. He attributes this to orders from Inspectors MacDuff and Forde.
However, there are ongoing debates… pic.twitter.com/0xn9YEJ8hL
During one stand-off last fall, counter-protesters brought out an armchair in a symbolic gesture referring to the circumstances in which Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was assassinated by the IDF and imitated the terrorist leader.
According to a publication by the U.S. think tank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Kach is “a hard-line Israeli militant group that advocates for the expulsion of Arabs from the biblical lands of Israel” which the U.S. State Department first listed as a terrorist organization in 1994.
“Kach, as well as the splinter group Kahane Chai, condones violence as a viable method for establishing a religiously homogenous state,” reads the file, in which CFR estimates there are less than 100 active individuals in Israel between the two groups. (Israel banned both groups in 1994, according the CFR website, “a month after a Kach supporter shot and killed twenty-nine Muslim worshippers at a West Bank mosque.”)
The ideology named after Meir Kahane—the former Israeli extremist and former Member of Knesset, in the 1980s—involves promoting violence and expansion of Israel’s territory in the Middle East, as well as separation between Jews and non-Jews and the subjugation of Palestinians in Israel.
The U.S.-born Kahane founded the JDL, according to the think tank document, which called JDL “a militant group that promoted Jewish vigilantism and urged American Jews to arm themselves under the slogan ‘every Jew a .22.’” (Kahane was assassinated in New York in 1990.)
A defunct far-right group that was focused on protecting Jews from antisemitism in their communities, JDL, which no longer exists by name in Canada, is considered inactive globally after 2015.
The group had been the paramilitary arm of Kach, or Kahane Chai, whose members, according to CFR and other reports, have been responsible for acts of violence and terror, including, the CFR document states, “[targeting] the offices and representatives of Soviet-bloc nations, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Arab states, and Jewish organizations it saw as moderate.”
In Toronto, the individual most closely associated with the now-defunct JDL is Meir Weinstein, the former Canadian director who reportedly left the group in 2021 following a violent altercation in downtown Toronto. Weinstein now promotes his advocacy efforts under the name Israel Now, and the ‘Never Again Live’ podcast and social media account, and continues to regularly counter-protest at pro-Palestinian demonstrations in Toronto.
Weinstein and Eli Schwarz have been photographed together, including as counter-protesters during pro-Palestinian protests and in particular during the two months that an anti-Israel protest encampment occupied the grassy quad at the downtown University of Toronto campus in spring 2024, before a court-ordered injunction put it to an end in early July.
Schwarz has also been documented driving the digital screen-panelled truck belonging to Rebel News. The company confirmed that Schwarz works for Ezra Levant’s media outlet as a part-time driver for the truck, and is not involved in editorial matters.
“None of the events in question involved Rebel News or our truck,” clarified publisher Ezra Levant via email.
In a separate media release Feb. 6, police said a 63-year-old man had been arrested Feb. 4 and charged for uttering threats, at one of the weekly demonstrations, on Jan. 26.
News Release – Man Arrested at Demonstration for Uttering Threats, Bathurst Street and Sheppard Avenue West areahttps://t.co/XYi2GSbxy2 pic.twitter.com/cp8zcbJ0cS
— Toronto Police (@TorontoPolice) February 6, 2025
TPS spokesperson Stephanie Sayers, in an email reply to questions from The CJN about Schwarz’s arrest and charges, and the moments that led to the alleged threats, explained that “while the investigation is ongoing, it is not currently being treated as hate-motivated as there was no criminal offence committed against an identifiable group.”
The search warrant TPS executed was “judicially authorized based on the strength of the evidence presented,” Sayers wrote.
“[There was] no weapon in their possession at the demonstration,” Sayers clarified in the email response.
“A firearm was found at the residence, which was legally owned. However, it has been seized in the interest of public safety. The firearm will be held until trial, at which point the court will determine whether it is returned.”
Sayers previously told The CJN that the force investigates “every reported instance of hate, including at demonstrations, for hate crimes, or hate speech, or signage. This includes the presence of flags that promote terrorist organizations, as identified by Public Safety Canada. If we make an arrest and charge someone for public incitement of hatred, we will release that information to the public. So far, we have charged three people with that offence for carrying terrorist flags at demonstrations.”
The Criminal Code states that under section 319(1), inciting hatred against an identifiable group carries a penalty of up to two years in prison.
This story was updated on Feb. 7 with information from Toronto Police Services
