House arrest, probation and community service are the price two Hamilton men will pay for scrawling antisemitic graffiti on the parking lot of a local synagogue.

The sentence was handed down Nov. 9, more than two years after Blake Trautman and Liam Greaves decided it would amuse their friends to chalk some Jew-hatred onto the parking lot of Beth Jacob synagogue.

Both men admitted in court they’d been drinking heavily that day, but denied their escapade was motivated by hate.

The graffiti—the word Jews in a circle with a red line through it and a drawing of a swastika—greeted congregants the next morning as they gathered for the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

In a victim impact statement, Rabbi Hillel Lavery-Yisraeli said the prank struck chords of real fear for some members, especially Holocaust survivors.

“This incident was unimaginably frightening,” he said. “Our sanctuary was full that day with members of all ages, including Holocaust survivors, people who, 70 years later, thought they had left all of that behind them and had found a new sanctuary in Canada.”

“There is no way to undo the feeling of fear it cre