Police investigating hateful graffiti in west Toronto

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Residents near Bloor and Lansdowne woke up Thursday morning to red swastikas spraypainted throughout their neighbourhood.

Ginette Reynolds told the Toronto Sun she first noticed the hateful symbols while bringing in her garbage bins.

“I flipped one of the the lids closed and I’m like … ‘What the hell is this?'” she said.

“I flipped the other one closed and I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me?!'”

Upon taking her dog for a walk south towards Bloor St. W., she noticed other trash bins along her street had been likewise targeted by vandals.

As well, several hydro poles in the area were also defaced.

After arriving, police told her that it wasn’t an isolated incident, and that they were investigating more incidents of hateful graffiti in the area.

Toronto Sun readers submitted photos of more antisemitic grafitti — “f–k the Jews” in red spraypaint — on an area railway bridge.

Toronto Police confirmed to the Sun that an investigation is underway.

This west-end neighbourhood has become a nucleus for much of west-end Toronto’s anti-Israel activism, with Palestinian flags and anti-Israel signs, literature and graffiti commonplace.

The office of Davenport MP Julie Dzerowicz, located just down the road at Bloor and Dufferin, is a frequent target of anti-Israel activists and vandals, usually armed with red paint.

A public square just north of the nearby Bloor GO Train station was taken over by local activists and renamed “Gaza Square.”

The area was also the subject of a neighbourhood campaign by local anti-Israel group Davenport4Palestine Wednesday evening, who sent activists spreading their message door-to-door.

The neighbourhood was also where a campaigner for failed NDP federal candidate Sandra Sousa told an area resident at their door that Israeli Jews should be “deported to New York City.”

That campaign worker was fired and the Sousa campaign offered an apology to the resident.

In a statement issued Thursday night, Ward 9 Councillor Alejandra Bravo said she was “deeply concerned” over the antisemitic graffiti. 

“These actions target Jewish people in our community, and that is unacceptable,” the statement read.

“Davenport is a community for everyone, and I stand with our Jewish neighbours.”

Anybody with information should call police or Crime Stoppers.

bpassifiume@postmedia.com
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