TORONTO (JTA) — After a man riddled a Jewish-owned restaurant with bullets in uptown Toronto, police accomplished something earlier this month that they hadn’t done following previous attacks on Jewish sites: identify and charge a suspect.

The 35-year-old suspect, Mohamed Mahdi, was arrested just a few days after the April 3 attack and charged with multiple gun-related offenses.

His arrest provided the first, and to this point only, public piece of information that could chip away at the mystery that has roiled Toronto’s Jewish community: Who is shooting at these synagogues and Jewish businesses? And how do they keep getting away with it?

In early March, three synagogues were targeted with gunfire in the span of a week, one with the rabbi still inside following a Purim event. A different location of the Jewish-owned Old Avenue Restaurant was hit as well, about a month before the latest shooting.

Similar attacks took place in 2024, when a girls elementary school was hit with gunfire three times throughout the year.

These attacks have been nearly identical in nature: A man approaches the building late at night with a mask or hood covering his face and fires bullets at the door or a window before driving or running off.

The recent string of shootings came as Jewish institutions have been attacked around the world, with security groups urging heightened vigilance. It renewed the fears sparked by those 2024 shootings, and — until Mahdi’s arrest — frustrations over a lack of repercussions for the shooters.

“I know that a lot of people in Toronto, a lot of members of our Jewish community, are saying that the police are not doing enough,” said Guidy Mamann, the president of the Toronto Zionist Council, who organized weekly pro-Israel hostage rallies.

Mamann said he does not himself agree, and thinks the police are doing what they can — but others have put the pressure on.

“Dispense with the thoughts and prayers and get to work,” Rabbi Daniel Korobkin, whose congregation, Beth Avraham Yosef of Toronto, was shot at in March, told Global News at the time.

According to Jevon Greenblatt, CEO of Toronto’s Jewish Security Network, the attacks themselves have been planned in a way that minimizes the risk of getting caught.

“These types of attacks are unfortunately designed to be quick and low-risk for the person carrying them out, late at night, minimal time on site, and often no interaction with anyone,” Greenblatt said in an email to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “That often means fewer witnesses and less immediate evidence.”

Police credited the arrest to an increased deployment of officers — “both overt and covert” — to Jewish neighborhoods, which was especially pronounced during Passover, when the latest shooting took place.

“Specifically in the case, covert assets........

© The Times of Israel