HUNTER: Jew hatred arrives in smalltown Ontario in the form of bullets
· Toronto Sun
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Growing up in Belleville, the small Jewish community did not stand out.
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The Sons of Jacob Synagogue stands where it has for decades in a quiet, leafy neighbourhood, largely obscured by large deciduous trees.
Its members are people who simply wanted to get on with their lives, work hard, raise a family and become part of a community. Bar owners, merchants, businessmen, just folks. No different than if they were Catholic or Anglican. No one cared then.
Faith usually did not matter
And despite the rigid ideological certainties of the faculty lounge, in smaller towns, one’s faith usually doesn’t matter. For most, it’s impractical to hate because you get to know people and have to do business with them.
You play hockey, golf, curl, drink with each other, your kids might attend the same school or play on the same teams.
In the 19 years I was a full-time resident of Belleville, I cannot for the life of me ever recall anyone making an antisemitic comment. Talking to my dad, he couldn’t either.
That all changed Sunday night because it’s 2026.
The alleged shooter is named Sean Ward
Around 7 p.m., there was an exchange of gunfire outside the Sons of Jacob Synagogue near Victoria and Bleecker avenues in the city’s east end. A Belleville cop was shot and is in critical condition from the exchange of gunfire with a 29-year-old shotgun-wielding maniac.
The gunman also has life-threatening injuries. If death comes calling for the shooter, that will be no great loss.
This abomination occurred on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, as synagogue members gathered.
Because it is a police-involved shooting, the province’s Special Investigations Unit has taken carriage of the probe.
Other than the alleged triggerman’s age, few details were initially released. Now we know his name. He is Sean Ward of nearby Quinte West. Whether he’s a Turner Diaries reading redneck or an Islamic fanatic with dreams of martyrdom has not been made clear.
Belleville Police Const. Jeff Smith, a 13-year veteran, remains in hospital fighting for his life.
Sharing an ‘ideological oneness’
In the days following the terror attacks on 9/11, I took it upon myself to interview a number of real Nazis (not simply people undergrads disagree with) and what they said was illuminating. August Kreis, a spokesperson for Sheriff’s Posse Comitatus and Aryan Nations, asked from his compound in rural Pennsylvania whether I was truly from the “Jew York Post.”
“One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” Kreis told me, adding that his bretheren of haters shared “an ideological oneness” with the “Islamic freedom fighters.”
According to Kreiss, his members hated the federal government, Israel and Jews. Sound familiar?
Canada allowed toxic poison out
Kreis said: “We may not want them marrying our daughter, just as they would not want us marrying theirs. We may not want them in our societies, just as they would not want us in theirs. But anyone willing to drive a plane into a building to kill Jews is all right by me. I wish our members had half as much testicular fortitude.”
And that’s a mindset shared by those smitten by Hitler and Islamic fanatics alike. It outpoints everything else in their miserable lives.
That a synagogue in a small town in Ontario was riddled with bullets with the intention of a massacre and a gutsy cop is in hospital fighting for his life tells us everything we need to know.
Canada let an ancient, toxic poison seap into its once healthy organs creating an exquisite hatred.
It’s a hatred that plays out daily in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. And now, unbelievably, places like my small hometown.