Sons of Jacob Synagogue, Belleville, Ontario

"There has been some trauma from this [Yom Kippur eve attack on Sons of Jacob Synagogue, Belleville, Ontario]. But we're going to pick up the pieces and we're going to start over and we're going to carry on."

"We will not be stopped by this person, or anyone else."

"We always have police protection. Every synagogue in North America on the high holidays has police protection. We've been doing it for years."

"Whenever there's a large gathering of Jews in a synagogue, there's police protection. That's just a sign of the times."

"For Jews, it's kind of like, who's going in the bad book? Who will not live through this year?"

"I guess we were all in the good book [congregants present during the attack], because we survived." 

Norman Weddum, president, Sons of Jacob Synagogue 

 

"When you're Jewish, you look to the history of your people."

"The people who came here were Holocaust survivors. They escaped Czarist Russia."

"They came to make a better life in this country, just as every Jewish community across this country." 

Shima Viggoda, vice-president, Sons of Jacob Synagogue 

 

"We're resilient, that's why we keep going. We have to fight."

"There was a time when we couldn't have services and we didn't have the people."

"But again, we built ourselves up, and we are standing on our feet now."

Mary Cohen, Sons of Jacob Synagogue board member

Police stand in front of the Son of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville, Ontario Ontario on Monday Sept. 21, 2026. Ian MacAlpine - The Canadian Press

 

The small congregation of the Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville, Ontario at sundown, Sunday had gathered for Yom Kippur services only to hear gunfire erupt outside. First thoughts were that the sounds were anything but shots; a vehicle backfiring, firecrackers, but no.  When it was fully understood that shots were being fired at the synagogue the doors were locked and everyone looked for shelter as bullets flew over the heads of those sheltering on the floor. 

 

The member of the Belleville Police Service, Corporal Jeffrey Smith, seated in an unmarked vehicle outside the synagogue heard someone shout at him "You're going to die for the Jews!" before he was shot twice, in the neck and back. He emerged though wounded, from the vehicle and engaged with the attacker, as shots rang back and forth until two minutes on another constable appeared and his subsequent shots fully disarmed the shooter, a discharged soldier from the Canadian Armed Forces who had armed himself with a shotgun fully intending to enter the synagogue and murder as many there as he could.

 

That shooter whose plan had gone awry, almost killed Constable Smith, now in recovery though remaining in critical condition, while none of the Jewish congregants were harmed physically. The terrorist attacker, taken to Kingston General Hospital as was Corporal Smith, died the following day. The carnage he  hoped to carry out in a bloody shoot-out at a place of worship during the most holy day in the Judaic religious calendar was not to be. And the heroic action of a severely wounded police officer saved many lives, while endangering his own.

 

In Canada from 2023 to 2026, dozens of reports of gunfire, arson, window breaking, threats and vandalism have taken place at synagogues, parochial schools, community centres, Jewish-owned businesses and Jewish neighbourhoods, with expressions of condolences from the federal, provincial and municipal governments, but little-to-no effort made to enact real solutions through laws already in existence against the promotion of hate in ethnic communities.

 

The Sons of Jacob Synagogue is shown in Belleville, Ontario on Monday Sept. 21, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sharif Hassan

 

"The rabbi had just started to call us into the sanctuary. We were stepping inside, and we heard this loud bang, and we all stopped. It sounded like someone was banging the window or the door."

"We knew this was going to happen. We’ve been saying as Jews that we’re very concerned with the rise of antisemitism. What did you think was going to happen? People weren’t taking it seriously."

"Some people suggested we should go to the basement, others said we should go out the back door. At the same time, you’re just frozen because you don’t know what’s going on or what to do. Eventually the shots stopped."

"This guy’s a hero. I can tell you the gunman was coming for us inside, and he was trying to take out our armed protection first. We’re praying for [Police Constable Jeffrey Smith’s] recovery."

Doug Warren, 56, Kol Nidre services, Sons of Jacob Synagogue 

 

The tiny Jewish community in Belleville has existed for a century and a half. Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe found their way to the town in the late 1800s, located halfway between the major cities of Toronto and Montreal. In 1905, religious ceremonies were held at a rooming house in service to Jewish workers; representing the earliest appearance of what would become in time the Sons of Jacob congregation. The synagogue was finally built and open for services in 1956, on a residential street astride the small Jewish community when sufficient funding had been raised for the project.

 

Some 55 families comprised the congregation which by then had opened its own Hebrew school, and services were planned by a rabbi; a shochet to ensure ritual kashrut was employed, and the synagogue became a hub for fundraising through organized bazaars dances, lectures  -- where it hosted area  marriages and Bar Mitzvah ceremonies. The congregation dwindled in time as the community's younger generation left to pursue their futures in larger cities. The synagogue no longer had its own rabbi, but yearly for that solemn occasion, raised the funds required to fly in an Israeli rabbi to officiate. 

 

The congregants throughout the years had their random experiences with local  antisemitism, with Jewish children attending public schools exposed to it from within the general population. In 1925, the son of Jewish immigrants from Poland who became a local prominent businessman, found a large cross on fire on his front lawn one morning. Now, recovering from the most recent traumatic event, synagogue leaders plan to reopen its doors shortly and carry on the traditions of their forefathers in this small Ontario town. 

 

Police Officers at the scene of a shooting where a police officer was shot outside a Yom Kippur gathering at Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville, Ontario, Canada, September 21, 2026.

(photo credit: REUTERS/PATRICK DOYLE)

 

"We’re still in a state of shock. How could this happen, especially in Belleville? It’s insulting on top of it all."

"It’s bad enough when you read it in the news, but when you hear about it from somebody directly affected that you know, it was very distracting. Yom Kippur is a day of atonement, so you think back on how you can make yourself better and how you’re going to improve and move on. It’s a very contemplative day."

"How sick is it that you need armed police to enter your place of worship? But it’s a fact of life."

Debbie Fitzerman, president, Kingston Jewish Council 

 

"This is what we’ve been experiencing for the last, at least three years, but definitely has been compounded since October seventh." 

"Most of the coverage about Israel is negative and spreading lies and libels about Israel and Jews, and people are getting radicalized because of it."

"I’d like to see Hamas people being called terrorists, not combatants or warriors. I’d like to see true accounts of the humanitarian efforts that are being waged and have been waged for the benefit of the Palestinian people by the Israeli army, and not only unfortunate statements that some very right-wing members of the Israeli government have uttered, which do not represent the philosophy or the policies of the Israeli government or the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]."

"The Jewish people have survived thousands of years with similar opposition and similar attacks and we’re still here. This is one of the miracles of the Jewish people is that we’re survivors. We’re not going to let anybody take our traditions away from us."

"What starts with the Jews doesn’t end with the Jews. We are the canary in the coal mine. We’re the first ones to be hated and vilified, but then it extends to others and the ball keeps rolling until everybody is finding a scapegoat that’s not them and pointing fingers at others. That’s how society in a democracy disappears and disintegrates."

Rabbi Erin Polansky, Beth Israel Congregation, Kingston