OTTAWA (AFP) — For the second year in a row, the number of attacks on Jews in Canada has hit a record high, a leading Jewish advocacy group said Wednesday.
In its annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, B'Nai Brith Canada reported a total of 1,042 death threats, assaults and intimidation of Jews last year by Canadians.
This figure has increased four-fold over the past decade, the group noted.
As well, incidents have spread from cities to rural areas for the first time, the group said in a statement.
"The 2007 findings indicate that anti-Semitism is not just at the fringes of Canadian society, nor the work of a few lone bigots," said Frank Dimant, vice-president of B'Nai Brith Canada.
"Anti-Semitism's reach is far more systemic," he added, noting: "This form of hatred appears to be increasing in rural areas, whereas before incidents were primarily confined to urban centers."
Incidents included an assault on a rabbi in Toronto, the words "kill Jews" scrawled on a Toronto public school wall, swastikas painted on Edmonton's oldest synagogue, and the firebombing of a Jewish community centre in Montreal.
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