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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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Trump urges Iran to make a deal after Iran fires missiles at Israel for first time in 2 months
(JTA) — Iran fired multiple barrages of missiles toward northern Israel on Sunday night local time, in the first direct fire from Iran on Israel since early April.
No one was immediately reported injured in the barrages, according to Israeli media, and the Israeli military said it shot down all the missiles aimed at the country on Sunday night.
The attack came hours after a stabbing attack by an Israeli Arab on Jews in central Israel killed one person and left several others injured.
The Iran salvo added to the turmoil for Israelis living in the north, who have been under constant fire from Iran’s proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, and upsetting an uneasy quiet in the rest of the country. Schools across Israel will be closed on Monday.
Iranian officials said the barrage was a response to Israel’s strike earlier Sunday on a Hezbollah installation in the suburbs of Beirut, which the Israeli army said targeted a command center used to direct attacks on its troops.
Hezbollah last week rejected a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal that would have halted Israeli strikes in Beirut, saying that it could not abide by terms that would have required it to exit southern Lebanon.
During a five-week war that Israel and the United States initiated against Iran on Feb. 28, at least two dozen Israelis were killed when Iran fired hundreds of missiles at the country in near-daily barrages. Active hostilities involving Israel ended when U.S. President Donald Trump initiated a ceasefire on April 8. He and Iran have not yet agreed to terms that would permanently end the war.
Trump said he was “not happy about” Israel’s strike in Beirut and signaled that he did not see Iranian barrage as an impediment to a future deal.
“It’s certainly not going to help negotiations,” he told Fox News. “We’re very close. I would say an agreement would be signed on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday of this coming week. And now this takes place.”
Addressing Iran directly, Trump said, “You’ve shot your missiles, that’s enough. Get back to the table and make a deal.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not immediately respond publicly to the Iranian attack on Israel.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Maine Democrats are poised to nominate Graham Platner, as Jewish Democrats withhold support
Maine Democrats are poised to nominate Graham Platner on Tuesday to challenge incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins in one of the most important Senate races this year. But a series of recent domestic violence allegations and controversies surrounding Platner could become a major political problem for the party in its effort to regain control of the Senate.
The controversy extends beyond questions about electability. Jewish Democratic organizations have withheld support from Platner over his past Nazi-linked tattoo, criticism of Israel and rhetoric that some Jewish leaders view as troubling, even as top national Democrats rally behind his candidacy.
The primary was effectively decided weeks ago when former Gov. Janet Mills suspended her campaign after lagging in polls and struggling to raise money. Mills never formally withdrew from the ballot, leaving open the possibility that some Democrats will use Tuesday’s primary as a protest vote against Platner
The dilemma facing Democrats is unusually stark.
Maine, considered a purple state, is widely viewed as one of the party’s clearest opportunities to flip a Republican-held Senate seat. Collins, 73, is running for a sixth term, though critics argue her image as a political moderate has diminished in recent years. In her last reelection campaign in 2020, Collins defeated her Democratic challenger 51-42. Sara Gideon, who is married to a Jewish lawyer, ran a competitive race and drew support from Maine’s estimated 15,000 Jewish voters and outside Jewish Democratic groups.
The 41-year-old Platner, an oyster farmer and former Marine, appeared to be the kind of insurgent candidate Democrats dream about. He led Mills by a significant margin and consistently ran ahead of Collins in public polling.
But the past two weeks have left Democrats struggling with his candidacy.
Reports about explicit messages sent to women while married and allegations from former partners describing threatening and troubling behavior, along with scrutiny of past online posts, put the Platner campaign on defense.
For Jewish voters, Platner’s rise and the party’s embrace of him were already hard to swallow. Platner faced backlash last year after acknowledging that a black skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his chest resembled a Nazi symbol. He has since covered it up. In past posts on Reddit, Platner defended a man with a Nazi SS lightning bolt tattoo who impersonated a federal officer at a Black Lives Matter protest in Las Vegas in 2020.
A New York Times story last week cited an ex-girlfriend who said Platner knew for years that the tattoo on his chest was associated with Nazi imagery, an allegation he has forcefully denied.
Also troubling to Jewish Democrats, Platner has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and suggested the U.S. should cut off all aid to Israel. Last week, Platner accused Collins of taking money from AIPAC and being “bought and paid for by Benjamin Netanyahu, and she votes accordingly.”
Halie Soifer, head of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said in an April interview that her group was not prepared to back Platner. JDCA had endorsed Mills in the primary before she suspended her campaign. On Sunday, Soifer said the group continues to stand by its endorsement of Mills, signaling that voters who remain uneasy about Platner still have the option of casting a vote for the former governor, whose name remains on the ballot.
“If he were running in Jersey, he’d either be thrown off the ballot or buried under the Meadowlands,” Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a Jewish Democrat from New Jersey, said on Friday.
Top Democratic strategists told Politico that Platner could face pressure to drop out of the race if Mills receives a significant amount of votes.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest ranking Jewish elected official in the U.S., has so far continued to show support for Platner. After meeting with Platner last week in Washington, D.C., Schumer told reporters that defeating Collins remains a top priority for Democrats seeking to reclaim power in the Senate.
The likely result is a question Democrats increasingly cannot avoid: If Platner wins Tuesday as expected, how much longer can national Democrats continue treating him as their standard-bearer and excuse conduct they would condemn in a Republican candidate? Jewish Democratic organizations, having already distanced themselves from Platner, will also have to decide how to respond if he becomes the party’s nominee, as other nominees are also coming under scrutiny for past remarks and associations with antisemitic influencers.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, in an interview Sunday on Fox News, was asked whether he’s concerned that his party “has an antisemitism problem,” citing Platner’s rhetoric and that of other Democratic candidates.
Platner is “going to have to speak for himself, and that’s what any candidate, particularly in a high-profile race, is going to be called upon to do,” Jeffries said. He added that the effort to crush antisemitism is an “American issue” and shouldn’t be a partisan issue. “It can’t be a red or blue issue. It’s a red, white, and blue issue.”
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Some Jewish Republicans say Tucker Carlson is no longer a threat. Others worry he’ll run for president.
(JTA) — At the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual gala last November, much of the discussion centered around right-wing antisemitism. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz warned that there was “an existential crisis in our party” as figures such as Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes built their online audiences, while right-wing firebrand Rep. Randy Fine of Florida slammed Carlson as an antisemite.
At the RJC’s “America 250” gala six months later, the mood was cheerier, and the cautionary words gave way to declarations that emerging antisemitism on the right was being dealt with properly.
Fine reminded the audience at the RJC event held in Manhattan on Sunday that in his speech to the RJC in November, he’d called Carlson “the most dangerous antisemite in America.” Now, he said, “I don’t know that that’s true anymore.”
Fine and other Republicans at the RJC gala told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that enough Republicans had spoken out against Carlson – most significantly, President Donald Trump – and his ilk to damage their image and dampen the threat they might pose. They also pointed to major GOP critics of Israel who had lost their seats in recent months.
But others have warned that it’s a mistake to celebrate too soon, or think Carlson’s star has really faded, especially amid speculation that he might launch a presidential run as a Republican.
Fine told JTA in a text that he now believes the country’s “most dangerous antisemite” is Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s anti-Zionist mayor. In contrast, he said, Carlson’s impact had only plummeted in the past half-year.
“I think that brand has been destroyed [in] the last six months,” he wrote, attributing the change to politicians like himself calling Carlson out, as well as “the damage he has done to himself.”
A number of speakers at the RJC who lauded Republicans’ response to antisemitism in the party also pointed to the recent primary defeat of outspoken Israel critic Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie. Brooks said to loud applause that the group spent $5 million in that race, and called the effort “a fight worth having and a victory worth celebrating.”
Speakers also recounted the resignation from Congress of Marjorie Taylor Greene in January, maintaining that the Republican Party is squashing its anti-Israel voices, while the Democratic Party is electing them.
“Being anti-Israel in today’s Republican Party is not — unlike the Democratic Party — a path to success,” said RJC CEO Matt Brooks during his remarks. Brooks later told JTA that Carlson, Owens and Fuentes’ “influence and credibility is less than it’s ever been” and that “they don’t represent” the mainstream of the MAGA movement.
But the Anti-Defamation League warned that it would be a mistake not to see the audience and impact of Carlson in particular as worthy of continued concern.
Oren Segal, the ADL’s vice president of counterextremism and intelligence, said in an interview with JTA that his organization’s biggest worry regarding Carlson is “not merely his relationship with any conservative or elected officials” but also the “normalization” of his views.
Segal pointed to the accusation that an Israeli attack on an American spy ship during the 1967 Six-Day War was intentional — used by conspiracy theorists as proof that the Jewish state cannot be trusted — despite U.S. investigations determining that it was a mistake.
“No one’s been a bigger boon to the USS Liberty Conspiracy of late than Tucker Carlson,” he said.
Segal added that it would be “absurd” to count out anyone as a potential presidential contender, while several political observers have speculated that Carlson may be weighing a run.
New York University professor Scott Galloway recently said on his New York Magazine podcast “Pivot” that the former Fox News host could be a serious contender. There is an “enormous lane,” he assessed, for a candidate who, like Carlson, has “very conservative values, an enormous media platform, an enormous army of acolytes that he could weaponize right away, and is anti-Trump and anti-the war on Iran.”
Some of Carlson’s allies are gunning for a campaign. Speaking Thursday on Russian state television during a trip to St. Petersburg, Owens said she personally did not plan to run for office but said Carlson would be a great candidate for president.
“I would love for him to run,” she said, adding, “I would gratefully get behind someone like Tucker Carlson.”
Back in March, TV host Piers Morgan asked Carlson whether he has White House ambitions. Carlson said that politics is “not what I do,” adding, “The whole idea of, ‘I’ve been a successful cable news host, I should be president!’ — that whole way of thinking is disgusting to me.”
Asked about the possibility of Carlson running for president, Brooks told JTA in a statement that the RJC would continue to push back against Carlson and similar anti-Israel figures.
“There is only one party where American Jews can be proudly pro-Israel, and it is the Republican Party — and those who imperil that will have to come through the RJC first,” Brooks said.
Others who attended Sunday’s RJC gathering felt the possibility of a Carlson candidacy was overblown. Shabbos Kestenbaum, a prominent Jewish conservative activist who sued Harvard University over alleged antisemitism, dismissed concerns that Carlson could be a serious presidential candidate.
In an interview, he pointed out that Carlson’s support of Massie and Ohio gubernatorial candidate Casey Putsch did not yield electoral success. Putsch, who has a history of dog whistling to neo-Nazis, received 17.5% of the vote in Ohio’s Republican gubernatorial primary. Unlike Massie, Carlson did not issue an endorsement for Putsch, but he did host Putsch on his podcast last year.
“His endorsements mean absolutely nothing, and outside of the ‘Podcastistan’ universe, his words carry very little weight,” Kestenbaum said of Carlson.
Brooks said in an interview with JTA that he feels “very pleased” with how the party has responded to voices like Carlson’s. President Donald Trump has publicly cast Carlson aside since his former ally sharpened his objections to the administration’s war in Iran.
“It’s been marginalized,” Brooks said of the party’s anti-Israel wing. “They tried to hijack the term MAGA. Groups like ours, but equally important, the president, has made it clear they are not MAGA.”
Asked about Vice President JD Vance, who has not offered a condemnation of Carlson to some Jewish Republicans’ chagrin, Brooks said, “When you have the president speaking, that’s the voice that matters right now.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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