Toronto Jewish girls’ school Bais Chaya Mushka shot at for third time

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Toronto’s Jewish community is resolute after a Jewish girls’ school on the city’s north side was riddled with gunfire for the third time this year.

“We are here to educate children, and that’s what we’re here for, and that’s what we will continue to do, and we hope that this is the final time, and this will come to an end again,” Rabbi Yaacov Vidal, the school’s principal, told reporters Friday. “As Hanukkah is coming up, light will always prevail, and the message to the world out there is increasing goodness and kindness.”

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While the school was in operation Friday, school officials said that some parents decided to keep their children home from school.

Toronto police said that in the early hours of Dec. 20 they found “evidence of firearm discharge” at Bais Chaya Mushka Elementary School in North York. Police responded within moments of the shooting, officials said.

Police believe that a vehicle with multiple people inside drove up to the school. One person got out of the vehicle and fired six gunshots at the school before getting back in and driving off.

Nobody was injured. School officials said the fencing and school building itself were shot. While the school has hired security guards, they do not work overnight.

Toronto Police Supt. Paul MacIntyre said police will have a command centre on scene 24/7 for the foreseeable future.

“I can assure you, we will leave no stone unturned trying to find the perpetrators,” MacIntyre said. “Everyone, from the chief right on down, is putting all the resources that we can into this. We have stepped up our patrols. We have a couple of guns and gangs teams working on these shootings. We are making progress.”

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Police have appealed to the public for anyone who was in the area early Friday morning who might have dashcam footage of other vehicles on the road.

Antisemitic attacks in Toronto have led to widespread condemnation among politicians. The city is home to the largest concentration of Jews in Canada and has been the site of major protests over the war in Gaza.

“There is a frustration, because what we’ve seen in our city in the past year with the antisemitic incidents, it’s horrifying. It is quite simply horrifying,” said MacIntyre. “And we’re doing what we can, standing with the Jewish community, and we are throwing everything at these shootings.” 

Toronto Coun. James Pasternak, who spoke to reporters alongside rabbis and Jewish activists, said the shootings are the direct result of the “incitement of mobs that have taken over our streets.”

“What you’re seeing is an entire societal failure, all the way from Ottawa down to the local government, to grapple with the lawlessness that is going on in our streets and in our cities,” Pasternak said, referring to anti-Israel protests. “What has become of the city? What has become of this country?”

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Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he is confident Toronto police will conduct a thorough investigation.

“I’m outraged and disgusted to hear that, once again, shots have been fired at a Jewish girls’ school in Toronto,” Ford wrote on X. “These antisemitic, hateful attacks have no place in Ontario.”

The gunshots come just days after the Congregation Beth Tikvah synagogue in Montreal was hit with a crude firebomb.

Isaac Herzog, the Israeli president, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that he spoke on the phone with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after the synagogue fire.

“I reiterated to him my great concern over the intolerable wave of antisemitic attacks against the Canadian Jewish community. I stressed that words would not suffice, and that firm and decisive action must be taken to bring the perpetrators to justice, to stamp out antisemitism, and to educate and legislate in order to ensure the safety and well-being of the Jewish community,” Herzog wrote.

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The Toronto police’s guns and gangs unit is investigating the shooting at Bais Chaya Mushka, supported by the hate crimes unit, police said.

“Enough is enough. Antisemitism and antisemitic attacks have no place in Toronto,” wrote Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow on X.

In October, Toronto police announced two people had been arrested — one of them a 17 year old — in connection with a shooting at the school on Yom Kippur, one of the holiest days in the Jewish calendar. Police at the time said gunshots had been fired from a vehicle, smashing a window at the school, and 14 shell casings had been found.

As of mid-October, hate-crime charges had not been laid in that shooting.

Helder Antonio De Ameida, 20, was charged with 11 firearms offences. The 17-year-old male was charged with firearms offences, possession of property obtained by crime, and failing to comply with release orders, police announced.

The school was shot at for the first time back in May. Again, an overnight shooting hit the school with bullets. Police are investigating and MacIntyre said they are “making great strides.”

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“We have the best of the best working on these three shootings,” he said.

Conservative politicians were quick to blame Trudeau for the escalation in antisemitism under his watch. Melissa Lantsman, a Conservative who represents Thornhill, a riding in the GTA, called on Trudeau to “address the country” about antisemitism.

“Canada has become a more dangerous place for the Jewish people under the divisiveness of the weak and now wounded Justin Trudeau,” Lantsman wrote on X. “Another day brings another cowardly act of antisemitic hate, and it’s well overdue that the government do something or anything to protect Canadians.”

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Ya’ara Saks, the Liberal MP for York Centre, also appeared with school officials and Jewish community organizers on Friday. She said the prime minister and his cabinet have “been unequivocally clear” in condemning antisemitism.

“This needs to be a clear message, top to bottom, from coast to coast of this country, that the Jewish community cannot and will not be intimidated,” Saks said.

Toronto has seen a significant rise in hate crimes since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel. In an October 2024 update, Toronto police said there had been 358 confirmed hate crimes in Toronto over the course of the year. Nearly 75 per cent of those hate crimes were directed at Jews. More than 160 people have been arrested and 403 charges laid, police said.

“The Jewish community will not be intimidated. We help build this city. We help build this country,” said Pasternak. “We’re going to go about our daily lives as Jews, living as Jews, and going around without intimidation and harassment.”

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