Jewish leaders condemn ‘hate-filled’ protest at Toronto’s Eaton Centre

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Jewish community leaders are condemning a Boxing Day rally held inside Toronto’s Eaton Centre that saw anti-Israel protesters shouting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” over megaphones as people shopped in the busy downtown mall.

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Video shows protesters chanting “Free, Free, Free Palestine,” and “While you’re shopping, bombs are dropping” outside the Indigo bookstore, which has a Jewish founder and CEO.

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Richard Robertson, director of research and advocacy for B’nai Brith Canada, said in a statement that the protest was “nothing short of a hate-filled attempt to unduly target a Jewish-owned business.”

“It is unfathomable that our leaders continue to embolden and enable those who wish to compromise the well-being of all Canadians through their callous acts of intimidation and incitement. As a society, we cannot allow for the continued denigration of our morals and values,” Robertson wrote.

Protesters also draped a huge banner of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from a railing that read “Arrest This Criminal.” Netanyahu is subject to an international arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, for allegedly committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, charges which Israel strongly disputes. Several allied nations, including the United States, have insisted they would not enforce the arrest warrant, were Netanyahu to step onto their soil.

Shoppers, meanwhile, largely seemed to be going about their business.

Toronto police said that there were about 20 protesters in the mall around 4 p.m. on Thursday, and all were escorted from the mall by security and paid duty police officers. (Paid duty officers are those who are not on shift with the police force but are hired to provide armed, in-uniform security by private entities, appearing at festivals, professional sports games and directing traffic.)

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Noah Shack, the interim president of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said the protests “threatened Indigo staff and negatively impacted customers simply wanting to enjoy their day.”

“Like the vast majority of Canadians, we believe this kind of threatening behaviour has no place in our society. This is just the latest among many examples of the hostility and extremism being whipped up by these protests,” Shack said in an emailed statement. “It’s long past time for authorities to take action against the brazen intimidation and extremism taking place in cities across Canada. Because while these protests may be targeting Jews, they ultimately threaten the democratic values that define Canada.” 

No arrests were made, police confirmed.

Marco Mendicino, a Liberal member of Parliament who represents the Toronto riding of Eglinton-Lawrence, called for the protesters to be prosecuted.

“This isn’t a lawful demonstration for peace. It’s antisemitic hatred targeted at a Jewish owned business — Indigo — designed to create chaos in public and intimidate the employees and shoppers who do business there. It’s a crime,” he wrote on X.

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The protesters were on two levels of the mall overlooking the Eaton Centre’s Christmas tree. It’s not clear from video or the chants whether the protesters had specifically chosen the location outside of Indigo for the protest, but anti-Israel protesters have targeted the bookseller in the past and there was another protest outside a Vancouver Indigo on the same day.

An online campaign — “Indigo Kills Kids” — has called for a boycott of Indigo, “due to its CEO’s involvement in the oppression of Palestinians and its complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” according to its website. Heather Reisman, Indigo’s CEO, along with her husband Gerry Schwartz, the CEO of the Onex Corporation, founded in 2005 a charitable organization called the HSEG Foundation, which provides scholarships to former soldiers in the Israeli military.

Cadillac Fairview, the real-estate company that owns Eaton Centre, did not respond to a request for comment. Nor did Toronto Centre MP Marci Ien or Toronto Ward 13 Councillor Chris Moise.

The Eaton Centre, set smack-dab in the middle of downtown Toronto, has long been a favoured location for protest movements. It has featured anti-Israel protests since the October 7 massacre, including last December, when two men were later arrested and charged (although charges against one of the men were later dropped).

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-vaccine protesters marched through the mall in a demonstration against vaccine passports. More than a decade ago, the mall saw a protest in support of Theresa Spence, who went on a hunger strike during the 2012 Idle No More protests. In 1999 a die-in was staged in the Eaton Centre to protest the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, and, in 1993, International Women’s Day marchers — some of them topless — marched through the mall. That’s in addition to the many protests held outside the mall, including anti-sweatshop protests, anti-fur sale protests and anti-homelessness protests.

On the other side of the country, protesters rallied outside the Indigo on Robson Street in Vancouver, blocking Boxing Day shoppers from entering, and bearing banners that said Indigo Kills Kids.

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