Toronto-area man who threatened Jews acted detestably, but his sentence was just

The Jewish community should not urge judges to scapegoat defendants with evil imaginations

Prefaced by the statement, “Antisemitism has reached a point of no return,” popular Israeli commentator Hillel Fuld recently predicted that in less than a month, “A very VERY large scale attack on Jews is about to happen.” Since Fuld also predicted — on Oct 5, 2023! — that, as he paraphrased it, “something big was about to happen and Israel would be at the centre of it,” I take his intuition seriously.

But I balk at his belief that to achieve what he envisages, “all it takes is one” brainwashed antisemite. Large-scale intifadas take hundreds of enablers to organize, finance and execute. Still, many would-be lone-wolf terrorists wish they could perpetrate “something big.” The brighter bulbs in this legion keep such wishes to themselves. The dimmer ones …well, read on.

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On March 4, 2024, Waisuddin Akbari, an antisemitic conspiracy theorist (he believed Israel was plotting to exterminate all non-Jews), confided to car salesman Cameron Ahmad, a fellow Muslim, that he had a plan “to plant a bomb in every synagogue in Toronto and blow them up to kill as many Jews as possible.” He urged Ahmad to remember his face because “the next time you see it, I’ll be on the news.”

Akbari did end up in the news, but only because Ahmad took his threat to the police. Akbari denied making his incriminating statements, which led to a trial in which he was found guilty both of uttering threats against Jews and threats to property. The Crown sought a four-to-six month jail sentence followed by three years probation.

Instead, on July 28, Judge Edward Prutschi sentenced Akbari to a 60 days house arrest and a probationary term of three years, during which he must participate in antisemitism education, not be in possession of weapons or incendiary devices and stay 200 metres from any synagogue or other Jewish institution.

The sentence was handed down despite community impact statements from representatives of several Jewish organizations.

A spokesperson for B’nai Brith Canada said Akbari’s threats were a “shot through the metaphorical heart of the Jewish community.” A Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs rep noted that such threats “may lead to real violence by normalizing hate speech.” And a person speaking on behalf of the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation sombrely commented that, “Canada is on a very dark trajectory that will not end well.”

These statements resonated emotionally with me, and anyone who reads Prutschi’s decision will find that they resonated with him, as well. The judge was exquisitely mindful of the “profound and pervasive sense of fear and despair amongst Canadian Jewry, tragically but eloquently described in the five community impact statements filed in this case.” But they weren’t legally relevant to this particular case.

After extensive searches of Akbari’s home, no weapons, maps, planning or evidence of affiliation with any known Islamist groups were found. Judge Prutschi noted that, “Akbari’s guilt is based on empty threats he communicated to a stranger, mistakenly assuming Mr. Ahmad would be sympathetic to Akbari’s own warped and hateful worldview.”

The key legal fact is that the odious comments were made in a private conversation, not in a public forum, nor to individual Jews or Jewish institutions, and therefore cannot be considered incitement to violence under the law. If Ahmad had not reported Akbari’s threat, we’d never have heard of him.

What purpose would jail time serve? Common sense, and the law, tell us that Akbari poses no discernible risk to public safety. Akbari, 41, who’s married with teenage children, is now unemployed, his shawarma shop franchise licence having been rescinded upon his conviction.

Akbari fears leaving home, as he and his family have suffered harassment. He is dependent on support from his Ismaili Muslim community, which in no way condoned Akbari’s behaviour — in fact, his entire circle of family and friends expressed shock over it — but is committed to help rehabilitate him.

In Akbari’s prepared statement to the court, he “displayed important insight into the harm those threats have caused,” and pledged to educate himself on Judaism — “something he had almost no knowledge of at the time of the offences.”

From the fleshed-out description in the judge’s decision, Akbari emerges as something of a Muslim Walter Mitty, a humdrum everyman daydreaming in heroic Technicolor.

That his fantasies of heroism do not map onto Superman-style avatars dedicated to making the planet safe from evildoers, but rather on Yahya Sinwar-style terror masterminds dedicated to making the planet Judenrein, is first a Jewish, then a Canadian, and indeed a western concern, but that distressing fact speaks to a more holistic issue — the same issue guiding the predictor of a “very VERY large-scale attack on Jews” — that cannot be addressed in a courtroom.

Judge Prutschi states — and this may stick in our collective Jewish craw, but he is right — that even though Akbari’s actions contributed to Jews’ further traumatization, he “is not to be punished for the totality of the landslide of hatred directed towards the Jewish community.”

The Jewish community, which knows a thing or two about being scapegoated for its imaginary evils, should not urge judges to scapegoat defendants with evil imaginations. Judge Prutschi’s sentence was reasonable and just.