82% of 2025 religiously-motivated hate crimes in Toronto targeted Jews — report

The Jewish community was the most targeted group for hate crimes in Toronto in 2025, according to a report presented yesterday to the Toronto Police Services Board.

The annual hate crime statistical report found that Jews, who make up less than 3 percent of Toronto’s population, were the targets of 82% of all religiously motivated hate crimes and 35% of all reported hate incidents in the city.

Police recorded 81 anti-Jewish hate crime occurrences, and officials said a Jewish resident was now 14 times more likely to experience a hate incident than other Toronto residents.

The report comes amid what Jewish organizations describe as a sharp rise in antisemitic violence across Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area. Since February, synagogues have been targeted with gunfire, Jewish-owned businesses vandalized and shot at, and visibly Jewish individuals assaulted in public.

Toronto police also reported a 24% increase in hate crimes compared with the same period last year.

Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs Vice President Michelle Stock calls the findings “deeply alarming.”

“Jewish Canadians are being targeted simply for who they are,” Stock says, urging governments, police and civic leaders to take coordinated action against antisemitism, extremism and hate-motivated violence.