By Rikki Zagelbaum, JNS
“The swift arrest is an important reminder that hate-motivated acts must have consequences,” Josh Landau of CIJA told JNS.
Syed Raza, of Toronto, was charged with arson after he allegedly removed Israeli flags displayed outside a church and set them on fire last week on Oct. 7, the third anniversary of the Hamas-led terror attacks, the Toronto Police Service stated.
The 29-year-old allegedly removed the flags from outside Faith International Christian Centre near Sunrise Avenue and O’Connor Drive shortly after 1 a.m., set them on fire and fled, the police department said on Tuesday.
Investigators identified Raza at a demonstration near Yonge and Dundas Streets in downtown Toronto on Saturday afternoon and arrested him.
Raza faces charges of arson, mischief under $5,000, mischief interfering with the lawful enjoyment of property and disobeying a lawful court order.
He was scheduled to appear in court on Sunday.
The Toronto Police Service’s Hate Crime Unit investigated the incident. The department did not announce any hate-related charges.
Josh Landau, senior director of government relations for Ontario at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the advocacy arm of Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA, told JNS that “the swift arrest is an important reminder that hate-motivated acts must have consequences.”
“When Israeli flags were burned outside the Faith International Christian Centre on Oct. 7, the message was intended to intimidate not only the Jewish community but those who stand with us,” he said.
Jews were the targets of 82% of religion-based hate crimes in Toronto in 2025, according to city statistics. In May, B’nai Brith Canada warned that 2026 was on pace to become the most violent year for Canadian Jews.
Landau thanked the police department for “taking this incident seriously” and said that CIJA is “deeply grateful to the church and its congregation for refusing to be intimidated out of standing with their Jewish neighbors.”
On the day of the attack, CIJA and the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto condemned the arson.
“Today, on the third anniversary of Oct. 7, the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust, Toronto’s Jewish community woke up to news that Israeli flags had been burned in a hate-motivated arson attack at a Christian institution,” the two stated.
“Faith International Christian Centre has stood with the Jewish community and with Israel,” they stated. “To see that solidarity answered with fire is a disturbing reminder that hatred does not stop with Jews. Increasingly, those who stand beside us are being targeted too.”
The Consulate General of Israel in Toronto also condemned the incident.
“On a day when we remember the victims of Oct. 7, this act of hate is especially disturbing,” it stated. “A church should be a place of peace, not a target for hatred.”
Brad Bradford, a member of the Toronto City Council who is running for mayor, stated that the attack was “not a protest.”
“It was an act of intimidation, aimed at the Jewish community and, it seems, Christian residents right here in Toronto and at a place of worship,” he said.
“Fire and hate, together, on a residential street before dawn,” he stated. “That’s meant to frighten people, and everyone in this city should say plainly that it has no place here.”
