A Jewish private high school in Toronto has been evacuated following a bomb threat.
The Anne & Max Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto (CHAT), located on Wilmington Avenue, North York, was evacuated around 12 p.m. EST on Nov. 15 following a reported threat received by the police, according to a Toronto Police Service (TPS) statement posted on
X, formerly known as Twitter. Police closed roads around the school and deployed a K9 unit to assist in the investigation.
Aviva Polonsky, a CHAT faculty member and president of the Federation of Teachers in Hebrew Schools in Toronto, described the incident as “unreal.”
“We just got evacuated at my school [because] of bomb threats,” she wrote in
an X post. “Unreal—like things couldn’t get worse in Canada.”
A TPS spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email statement that a synagogue and a nearby daycare were also evacuated as a precautionary measure.
The Toronto police
later confirmed that the investigation at the scene concluded at 2:51 p.m., stating no concerns were identified and no injuries reported. Investigation into the incident remains ongoing. No arrests have been made so far.
The Epoch Times reached out to CHAT for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
A community group, Canadian United for Israel,
reported on X that this marks the second instance of students at the private institute facing such a violent threat. A
video released by the group showed children from the daycare centre being evacuated.
There has been a surge in similar threats and attacks targeting the Jewish community in Canada following the assault on Israel by the terrorist group Hamas on Oct. 7. The incident prompted Israel to lay siege on Gaza, launching missile and ground attacks.
On Nov. 7,
incendiary devices were thrown at two locations in a Quebec Jewish community, causing damage to a synagogue and a nearby Jewish community centre. On Nov. 9, two Montreal Jewish schools were
shot at overnight, with no reported injuries.
More incidents occurred in the past week, including a threatening message taped onto the door of a Vaughan synagogue on Nov. 14. The YRP are currently investigating, as reported by
YorkRegion.com.
Richard Robertson, research manager at B’nai Brith, a Jewish human rights organization,
told The Epoch Times that there’s been a “dramatic rise” in anti-Semitic activity in Canada.
“Unfortunately, we’ve seen things progress in terms of the caustic nature of the ... rallies to online incitement to more pronounced forms of incitement,” Mr. Robertson told The Epoch Times in a previous interview. “Now we’re seeing, unfortunately, like with the shootings, the physical consequences of this. The community’s on edge.”
