A synagogue in Thornhill was the target of alleged anti-Semitic vandalism on Wednesday morning, according to B’nai Brith Canada, prompting a police investigation.
Rabbi Mendel Kaplan says around 9:40 a.m., the glass doors of Chabad Flamingo were smashed with a rock.
On his Facebook page, Rabbi Kaplan says a man walked by the synagogue, stopped multiple times to look for rocks and then ran back twice to “hatefully smash the glass doors.”
ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACK IN THORNHILL!!! Our cameras’ show a man walking by our Shul… stopping multiple times looking for…
Posted by Mendel Kaplan on Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Rabbi Kaplan also posted two different angles of security camera footage that captured the incident.
In the videos, a man in a black parka can be seen throwing a large rock at the glass doors. The rock bounces off the door and splits in two when it hits the ground. A short while later, the man is seen running back and throwing a piece of the broken rock against the doors again.
The suspect has been described as a male, between 20 and 30 years of age, five-foot-eight to five-foot-ten with a medium build. He was last seen wearing a dark grey or black North Face-style winter coat with fur-trimmed hood, black hooded-sweatshirt with the hood up, grey jeans and black Nike sneakers with the ‘swoosh’ on the toe area.
The York Regional Police Hate Crime Unit and the #2 District Criminal Investigations Bureau are investigating. Anyone with information is asked to contact police or Crime Stoppers.
