The Ottawa Police Service (OPS) Hate and Bias Crime Unit has charged a person over harassment and a threatening phone call to a rabbi. On Friday around 3:30 p.m., OPS officers commenced an investigation when a complaint was received, according to a Monday press release. OPS said the suspect was identified and arrested on Saturday. A 29-year-old Ottawa man has been charged with various hate-motivated offences and appeared in court on Monday. It encouraged anyone who witnesses or experiences such incidents to report them to it. It will prosecute people who commit hate crimes to the fullest extent of the law. While this incident has passed, OPS said hate has no place in Ottawa. Former Conservative senator Linda Frum (Ontario) said OPS released the press release which avoided the term rabbi and used the more vague term religious leader. “So the question falls to them: in announcing this hate crime, why did police hide that it was targeted against a Jew?” said Frum. “CTV discovered the facts on their own whereas @CBCNews ran the release given by @OttawaPolice.”.Frum asked why it chose to suppress the facts around an act of anti-Jewish hate. If people want to fight antisemitism, she said it cannot happen “if we don’t call it out by name.”This ordeal comes after a group of Toronto4Palestine members gathered outside Cafe Landwer to intimidate it over its support for Israel on October 21. READ MORE: WATCH: Pro-Hamas protestors swarm Jewish cafe in Toronto“Protestors have posted pictures targeting staff working at the cafe,” said Documenting Antisemitism..The protest organizer called Cafe Landwer “a very Zionist cafe.”
