Toronto Grocery Store Named IDF Firebombed by Anti-Israelis

A Jewish-owned grocery store in Toronto named IDF was firebombed and defaced with “Free Palestine” graffiti in an incident police are investigating as a hate crime. Full Story

January 4, 2024 – 23 Tevet 5784

A Jewish-owned grocery store in Toronto named IDF was firebombed and defaced with “Free Palestine” graffiti in an incident police are investigating as a hate crime. Full Story

By COLlive staff

A Jewish-owned grocery store named IDF in Toronto was firebombed and defaced with “Free Palestine” graffiti early Wednesday morning, National Review reported.

Toronto Fire responded to a call around 6 a.m. Wednesday for a commercial fire at International Deli Foods in the area of Steeles Avenue and Keele Street.

“I’ve been a criminal investigator the vast majority of my career, and in most of those criminal investigations, there was a tipping point. This is this tipping point,” Toronto Police Service spokeswoman Pauline Gray said outside the vandalized International Delicatessen Foods building, which is located in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood.

A nearby business owner told CityNews the deli is owned by a Russian Jewish family.

Staff Supt. Gray says the Toronto Police Hate Crime Unit is now investigating the incident as a hate-motivated crime.

“This is not graffiti on a bus shelter. This is not lawful protest protected by constitutional right. This is a criminal act. It is violent, it is targeted, it is organized, and it will receive the weight of the Toronto Police Service to exactly what it deserves,” Gray continued. “We will leave no stone unturned. We will use all the resources available to us to investigate, arrest and prosecute who is responsible for this.”

A Jewish-owned business in Toronto was firebombed and graffitied. This isn’t an act of political protest, it’s a terrifying act of unadalterated Jew-hatred. pic.twitter.com/0wdOIZoVBp

— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) January 3, 2024

The attack drew the condemnation of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), a prominent Canadian Jewish lobbying group. “This is another sickening example of the escalation in #Antisemitism we’re seeing in cities across #Canada. Political & community leaders need to speak out loudly & decisively — this violence cannot be tolerated any longer,” CIJA wrote in an official statement on X.

Local law enforcement vowed to treat the firebombing as a hate-based crime, National Review reported. “We’re very early on in the investigation, and I must highlight when I say it’s organized, they didn’t just happen upon this business. Let’s be not silly here. These people have targeted this business, and so that means they’ve been here before,” spokeswoman Gray said.

Toronto Coun. Mike Colle called the incident a “firebombing” and a “disgusting criminal act.”

“This is an attack on people because they may not be of your religion or your race,” Colle says. “This anti-Semitic violence is something that is really troubling.”

Despite the apparent antisemitic nature of the attack, the publicly funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) sporadically edited coverage of the incident throughout the day, taking until the afternoon to mention that the store was “Jewish-owned.”

“The firebombing of a Jewish-owned business in Toronto amid a historic spike in local antisemitism might warrant a more descriptive and concerned headline than the CBC sees fit to provide here,” media watcher and Canadian journalist Jesse Brown wrote before noting that the outlet had seemingly obscured the perpetrator’s antisemitic thrust for hours.

The firebombing of a Jewish-owned business in Toronto amid a historic spike in local antisemitism might warrant a more descriptive and concerned headline than the CBC sees fit to provide here. https://t.co/7f66y7VvVb

— Jesse Brown (@JesseBrown) January 3, 2024