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A suspect is charged in one of Toronto’s Jewish shootings — but the bigger picture remains murky
(JTA) — TORONTO — After a man riddled a Jewish-owned restaurant with bullets in uptown Toronto, police accomplished something earlier this month that they hadn’t done following previous attacks on Jewish sites: identify and charge a suspect.
The 35-year-old suspect, Mohamed Mahdi, was arrested just a few days after the April 3 attack and charged with on multiple gun-related offenses.
His arrest provided the first, and to this point only, public pieces of information that could chip away at the mystery that has roiled Toronto’s Jewish community: Who is shooting at these synagogues and Jewish businesses? And how do they keep getting away with it?
In early March, three synagogues were targeted with gunfire in the span of a week, one with the rabbi still inside following a Purim event. A different location of the Jewish-owned Old Avenue Restaurant was hit as well, about a month before the latest shooting.
Similar attacks took place in 2024, when a girls elementary school was hit with gunfire three times throughout the year.
The nature of these attacks have been nearly identical: A man approaches the building late at night with a mask or hood covering his face and fires bullets at the door or a window before driving or running off.
The recent string of shootings came as a number of Jewish institutions have been attacked around the world, with security groups urging heightened vigilance. It renewed the fears sparked by those 2024 shootings, and — until Mahdi’s arrest — frustrations over a lack of repercussions for the shooters.
“I know that a lot of people in Toronto, a lot of members of our Jewish community, are saying that the police are not doing enough,” said Guidy Mamann, the president of the Toronto Zionist Council who organized weekly pro-Israel hostage rallies.
Mamann said he does not himself agree, and thinks the police are doing what they can — but others have put the pressure on.
“Dispense with the thoughts and prayers and get to work,” Rabbi Daniel Korobkin, whose congregation, Beth Avraham Yosef of Toronto, was shot in March, told Global News at the time.
According to Jevon Greenblatt, CEO of Toronto’s Jewish Security Network, the attacks themselves have been planned in a way that minimizes the risk of getting caught.
“These types of attacks are unfortunately designed to be quick and low-risk for the person carrying them out, late at night, minimal time on site, and often no interaction with anyone,” Greenblatt said in an email to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “That often means fewer witnesses and less immediate evidence.”
Police credited the arrest to an increased deployment of officers — “both overt and covert” — to Jewish neighborhoods, which was especially pronounced during Passover, when the latest shooting took place.
“Specifically in the case, covert assets saw the suspect fleeing and gathered critical information that led to his arrest,” police chief Myron Demkiw said in a press conference.
Mamann said it was “great” that police were able to thwart the attack. But he also pointed out that Old Avenue Restaurant had already been targeted once, perhaps making it a prime location for police to monitor.
“They said they were able to find the suspect through covert measures, that’s great,” Mamann said. “Can you deploy those covert measures everywhere? Would they be effective? Would they be 24 hours? Or were those covert measures deployed because they had information that something might happen?”
A pair of incidents this past weekend added to Toronto Jews’ rising security concerns. One man assaulted a father on his way to Shabbat service at the Sephardic Kehilah Centre, after attempting to force his way inside; the following day, a rock was thrown through the window of a Judaica shop on the heavily Jewish Bathurst Street corridor. Both occurred in broad daylight, and neither suspect has been identified.
As for Old Avenue Restaurant, police said they are investigating why it was targeted twice. Its owner, Esther Bakinka, is a prominent pro-Israel advocate who organized hostage rallies alongside Mamann. Bakinka declined to comment; Mamann said she is “very strong” but that “that has got to leave you pretty shaken up.”
Even after Mahdi’s arrest, a number of question marks remain for Toronto’s Jewish community.
Chief among them is whether there is a direct link between the shootings that have taken place across the city. Greenblatt said the arrest was an “important development” and could potentially help answer that question while also dissuading copycat attackers.
“We’re hopeful this may help establish whether there are any links to the other incidents, and more broadly, that a visible arrest and charge acts as a deterrent,” Greenblatt said.
Unlike the 2024 shootings at Bais Chaya, the Jewish girls’ elementary school, the recent string of synagogue and Jewish restaurant attacks have come as Israel is at war with Iran. Iran has a long track record of sowing violence against Jewish and Israeli targets abroad. In the last couple of weeks, a string of arson attacks have targeted Jewish sites in the UK, with many being claimed by a new, Iran-linked group that says it is behind similar attacks across Europe. Jewish security groups have urged heightened caution since the war broke out, with one watchdog calling it “the most elevated and complex threat environment” in recent history.
Greenblatt said there is no evidence that there has been direct coordination between the incidents, but that a broader form of influence could be at play. He said that there is an “increased emphasis, similar to what we’ve seen from groups like ISIS and Hamas, on encouraging so-called ‘lone actor’ activity.”
“The rhetoric and messaging are often designed to inspire individuals to take action on their own, rather than operate under direct instruction,” Greenblatt said. “So, while there may not be evidence of direct coordination between incidents, they can still be linked by a shared influence or narrative environment that encourages this kind of behavior.”
Police upped their presence in Toronto after the outbreak of the Iran war, and announced a new Counter-Terrorism Security Unit following the three synagogue attacks. In the announcement, Demkiw highlighted “global conflicts, extremist ideologies, online radicalization, hostile foreign actors and heightened polarization” as “realities that impact both our work and the sense of safety in our communities.”
Demkiw also announced Task Force Guardian, an initiative that deploys officers armed with patrol rifles at key locations like houses of worship to deter potential attackers. A week later, Old Avenue Restaurant was hit with more than a dozen bullets.
The whole thing has left Jewish Torontonians feeling uneasy.
Even as police stand outside more houses of worship, carry bigger guns and gather more intelligence, Mamann said he worries that the community is vulnerable to a sudden attack like the shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney in December that killed 15 people at a Hanukkah event.
And in his conversations with other Toronto Jews, Mamann said they’ve theorized about who’s been behind the shootings.
“We’re thinking like this: The folks that we deal with at Bathurst and Sheppard, some people consider them annoying or intimidating,” he said, referring to the pro-Palestinian protesters who would show up across the street from his group’s hostage rallies. “But it doesn’t appear that we’re dealing with that crowd.” The suspect, Mahdi, may have a criminal record. In 2019, a 29-year-old man named Mohamed Mahdi was arrested for attempted murder and unauthorized possession of a firearm, in connection with a shooting. Police did not confirm whether it was the same Mohamed Mahdi, but the ages line up, and both were identified as being from the suburb of Brampton.
Meanwhile, Mahdi’s arrest has put to rest some of the theories that these attacks have been false flags coordinated in order to drum up sympathy for the Jewish community.
Mamann said he believes the shooters are professionals with potential ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who are willing to risk going to jail on firearm charges. Police in the UK said earlier this week that recent arson attacks may have been carried out in exchange for payments from Iran, based on emerging evidence.
“I think we’re dealing with a whole different cohort of people, and it could be state-sponsored, I don’t know,” Mamann said. “And that’s why it creates a lot of concern: We don’t know how to deal with this.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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US soldier charged for threatening to ‘kill every single Jew’ inside of a synagogue
(JTA) — A soldier stationed at Fort Polk in Louisiana was arrested last week after he told users on the popular messaging platform Discord that he planned to conduct a mass shooting at a synagogue.
Jakob Marcoulier, 22, was arrested last Thursday and charged with transmitting a threat in interstate commerce after the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center received a tip in February that he had made threats toward synagogues, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the western district of Louisiana.
According to court documents, the FBI obtained audio from Discord in which Marcoulier allegedly said, “After this deployment if the Jews still have reign over our government, I am going to walk into a synagogue with my AK, with a 75-round drum mag, and all of my extra mags, with my level four plates, and my haka helmet that’s three plus, and I am going to kill every single Jew I know inside of that synagogue. And that’s my goal in life.”
During the communications, Marcoulier told the other users, “You guys will never do anything about but I will. I just have to finish this, I have to go back overseas and do what I have to do. And then you’ll see me in the news. I promise you.”
He also allegedly said that he would “kill these motherf—kers in order to make sure the white youth is f—king secured.”
It was not immediately clear when Marcoulier made the comments, but the United States and Israel jointly attacked Iran on Feb. 28 following a buildup of U.S. troops in the Middle East.
The Iran war has put Jewish institutions across the country and the around the world on high alert, with attacks on synagogues including arsons in Europe and a synagogue ramming in suburban Detroit last month.
“Threats against synagogues and Jewish Americans are threats to the religious freedom promised to every single one of us, and this Office and our law enforcement partners are committed to protecting those freedoms,” United States Attorney Zachary A. Keller said in a statement.
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J.D. Salinger asked publishers to remove references to his Jewish heritage, newly surfaced letters reveal
(JTA) — Acclaimed author J.D. Salinger asked his publisher to remove references to his Jewish heritage in the book jacket of “The Catcher in the Rye,” newly surfaced letters from 1951 reveal.
The request came in a letter from Salinger, a notoriously private man, and his editor, John Woodburn at publisher Little, Brown and Co. The correspondence, which took place in early 1951, predates the first publication of “The Catcher in the Rye,” Salinger’s hit coming-of-age novel.
“I don’t know that I’d like to have that Jewish-Irish business slapped on the jacket,” Salinger wrote. “Surely if it’s catchy, that is.”
The letter has come to light because Peter Harrington Rare Books, a bookseller based in London, has listed it as part of a package for sale in the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, which begins on Thursday.
“The Catcher in the Rye,” a contemporary classic following the life of angsty boarding school student Holden Caulfield, is one of the best-selling books of all time.
Caulfield’s character is of Irish heritage, like Salinger’s mother. But Salinger was the son of Sol, a cheese salesman (whose wares might have been kosher) and the grandson of a rabbi on his father’s side. His mother, Marie Jillich, went by Miriam to appease her in-laws who disapproved of the mixed marriage. He learned his mother’s real name only around the time of his bar mitzvah.
To Woodburn, Salinger wrote that he worried about being pigeonholed as a Jewish-Irish writer if the book broadcast that information.
“My Jewish-Irishness isn’t quite so bizarre, as, say, [James] Thurber’s eyesight,” Salinger wrote, referring to the American author and cartoonist, who was legally blind by that time. “But nonetheless, second-rate reviewers would probably find the information just provocative enough to use and misuse over and over again, and I’d end up being expected to wear a Star of David and a Shamrock on the back of my sweatshirt. So, please, let’s be careful.”
Salinger’s other famous works include the 1948 short story “A Perfect Day for a Bananafish,” which follows the Irish Catholic-Jewish Glass family, who also make appearances in “Franny and Zooey.”
The letters, previously unpublished, were acquired from a private collector and will be on view at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair at the Park Avenue Armory from Thursday to May 3.
The bookseller is also currently offering a first edition of the script of West Side Story, inscribed by all four writers of the play, book, and music: Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Arthur Laurents, and Stephen Sondheim. Peter Harrington has also sold a rare, first printed edition of “De Bello Judaico” by Josephus Flavius, the first-century Roman-Jewish historian.
The triad of letters is currently offered at a set price of $47,500 and includes two typed letters by Salinger, with his signature, and a carbon copy of Woodburn’s reply. It also includes a reference to one of Salinger’s “lost stories,” a prequel to “Catcher in the Rye” that was not to be published until 50 years after his death.
Salinger died in 2010 at the age of 91. The “lost story,” “The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls,” was set to be published in 2060, but in 2013, it was pirated and leaked online.
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New York Teacher Seeking to Unseat Ritchie Torres Calls for Socialism, Removal of All Pro-Israel Politicians
Andre Easton speaks to supporters in New York City. Photo: Screenshot
The race to unseat incumbent US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) is drawing attention not only for its electoral implications but also for the broader ideological project outlined by some of his opponents.
Andre Easton, a far-left, anti-Israel high school teacher and member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, is running as an independent in New York’s 15th Congressional District on a platform that goes beyond defeating the incumbent. In new remarks, Easton suggested that unseating Torres would not, on its own, achieve the political transformation he seeks.
“We understand that this has to be built in the election system, in the election cycle, and outside of the election cycle,” Easton said, describing a strategy that blends electoral participation with grassroots organizing aimed at shifting political and economic power toward the working class. Easton then asserted that the implementation of socialism in the US was necessary to empower the economic downtrodden.
Easton made the comments on Monday night during an event hosted at The People’s Forum in New York City. The event, titled “Palestine: A Test of Democracy,” featured a panel of individuals all donning keffiyehs — a traditional Arab headdress that has been repurposed following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel to signify support for the anti-Israel political cause.
Easton also argued that removing elected officials who support Israel would only address “a symptom,” framing his campaign as part of a broader effort to build a socialist system in the United States. He stated that having a few politicians removed for their “complicity in funding and supporting a genocide is a step in the right direction,” appearing to lend support to the false claim that Israel pursued genocide against the Palestinians during its campaign against the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza.
Torres, one of the most outspoken pro-Israel Democrats in Congress, has consistently backed the US-Israel alliance and condemned rising antisemitism. His positions have made him a prominent voice within the party at a time of growing internal divisions over Middle East policy. Leftists have taken aim at Torres, accusing him of supporting a so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
During his remarks this week, Easton claimed that “349 members” of Congress have received “direct funding from Israel,” a characterization that misrepresents how US campaign finance works. Organizations such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) are US-based and funded by American donors, though they advocate for strong US-Israel ties and support candidates aligned with that position.
Supporters of Torres argue that such rhetoric suggesting foreign funding risks fueling harmful narratives, particularly amid heightened concerns about antisemitism. They contend that backing for Israel among US lawmakers reflects policy alignment rather than external control.
Easton, for his part, framed his campaign as an effort to mobilize supporters beyond traditional electoral participation. He encouraged individuals to become “active participants” and “active protagonists” in shaping political outcomes, emphasizing sustained engagement outside of election cycles.
Political analysts have noted that campaigns like Easton’s bid often aim to influence the broader ideological landscape even when victory is unlikely. By promoting more expansive policy goals and organizing committed supporters, such efforts can seek to shift the boundaries of mainstream political debate, sometimes referred to as the Overton window.
For Torres and his allies, the race underscores a wider debate within the Democratic Party over foreign policy, economic systems, and the role of activism in electoral politics. While the outcome of the primary remains uncertain, the contest highlights competing visions not just for a congressional seat but for the direction of the party itself.
Another candidate seeking to defeat Torres is Michael Blake, a progressive former New York state assemblyman who is running an insurgent anti-Israel, left-wing campaign.
Efforts to unseat Torres are considered a longshot. Though little recent polling of the race has been publicly released, existing polls show Torres with widespread approval across his district. The 15th district, which contains the heavily Jewish Riverdale suburbs, is expected to reelect Torres, although the Democratic primary is still to be held in June, followed by the general election in November.