Toronto Hate Crimes Increase, With Jews Targeted The Most
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — Reports of hate crimes in Toronto increased by 8 percent, with the city’s Jewish community targeted the most, according to a police report compiling last year’s data.
Hate crimes in the city increased to 145 in 2016 from 134 the previous year, the Toronto Police reported. Forty-three of the reported attacks, or 30 percent, were against Jews, followed by LGBTQ, blacks and Muslims.
Crimes motivated by religion accounted for 46 percent of the incidents, the highest number in the past 10 years.
Police said suspects in hate crimes are predominantly male and aged 18 to 40.
The three most reported criminal offenses motivated by hate were mischief to property, assault and criminal harassment. The Jewish community saw the most cases of vandalism.
Only 11 arrests were made in 2016, down from 19 the previous year.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
