Legal Update – Week of May 12: Courts Deliver Contrasting Decisions in Cases Involving Antisemitic Conduct
- Rochelle Direnfeld
- 6 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
R. v. Johnson
On Monday, May 12, Skigh Johnson was sentenced to a conditional discharge and 12 months of probation including 70 hours of community service after a finding of guilt for willfully interfering with the lawful business operation of a Starbucks coffee shop in the Bathurst and Eglinton area of Toronto.
The facts of the case were never in dispute as Ms. Johnson enthusiastically and proudly posted her confession on TikTok shortly after she committed the offence. In the early hours of November 16, 2023, Ms. Johnson attended the coffee shop and vandalized the storefront as follows:
On the glass windows, she wrote in large letters: “Free Palestine”, “Stop killing babies”, “Blood on your hands”.
Posters were pasted on the windows stating: “Starbucks kills”, “A cup of coffee? You mean a cup of blood”, “Blood on your hands”, “Stop funding genocide”, “ Shame”.
In a social media post after the commission of the offence, Ms. Johnson appears in a head covering and mask with a handful of multicoloured markers. Her name is displayed with the following words: “Hope everyone has a great coffee run in the morning #freepalestine #boycottstar.”ⁱ
Justice Maylor of the Ontario Court of Justice in Toronto had little difficulty in rejecting the defences proffered by Ms. Johnson, namely that her actions were a matter of political expression with no intention to interfere with or harm the business operation at Starbucks.
She also unsuccessfully argued that the damage was so trifling in nature and degree, that it should not be criminalized. It was clear from her after-the-fact post that her intention was to disrupt the business at the coffee shop and the damage was not at all trifling in nature.
The Court accepted the evidence of Starbuck’s District Manager that $3800-$4000 in lost revenue was suffered by the shop in addition to the cost to clean up the graffiti and remove the posters. In addition, staff were traumatized by Ms. Johnson’s actions such that Starbucks paid for counselling for some of the staff. On December 18, 2024, the Court found Ms. Johnson guilty as charged.
At a lengthy sentencing hearing, the Crown adduced virulently antisemitic posts and reposts made by Ms. Johnson (including criticism of the Jewish victims of the October 7th attack and wishing harm to Jewish supporters of the hostages) to demonstrate, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Ms. Johnson’s criminal conduct was motivated by antisemitic bias, prejudice or hate pursuant to subsection 718.2(a)(i) of the Criminal Code. The Crown also adduced a post Ms. Johnson made after her finding of guilt where she states that the guilty verdict was unsurprising “because Zionists have power”. The Crown also filed a Community Impact Statement by the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies.
Ms. Johnson submitted that she is not antisemitic, but she is anti-Zionist and claimed that her antisemitic posts were “a hyperbolic response to online anti-black racism, misogyny, threats to her safety, threats to her ability to earn a livelihood, along with doxxing, where her private details were provided to a broad social media audience”.
In support of her position two letters were filed by members of the “Jews Say No To Genocide Coalition”, described by the court as “supportive letters from Jewish Community members” as well as a letter from a psychotherapist. That letter, authored by Atia Haq, a registered psychotherapist, explained that Ms. Johnson was traumatized by her exposure to the Middle East conflict and the online backlash she experienced, leading to a blurring the of the “distinction between Zionists and Jewish people”. Ms. Johnson’s mental health and well-being were impacted, such that she felt threatened and engaged in communication that she might not have otherwise. Ms. Johnson told Ms. Haq that many of her neighbours are Jewish and Israeli, with whom she has positive and friendly relations.
It is unfortunate that this evidence was admitted unchallenged. It would have been helpful to the court to have heard evidence clarifying that groups like “Jews Say No To Genocide” do not represent the voice of mainstream Canadian Jews, that 91% of Canadian Jews identify as Zionist and that most Jews recognize the deep historical, religious, and emotional link between the Jewish people and Israel.
Instead, Justice Maylor was left with the unchallenged submission that there is a legitimate, recognized divide between Zionism and the Jewish people, without an explanation as to what Zionism really is – the belief that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel, and not the demonized, antisemitic definition ascribed to by Ms. Johnson.
The acceptance of this unchallenged evidence led Justice Maylor to find that the prosecution had not discharged its burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Ms. Johnson’s criminal mischief was motivated by antisemitic bias, prejudice or hate. The Court found:
Despite the inflammatory and biased nature of some of the offender’s social media posts, the court cannot properly ignore or discount the defence material. The Crown has not disproven that the offender’s posts were the result of doxxing and online harassment that included racist, misogynistic, and threatening comments. The psychotherapist’s report, letters from members of the Jewish community and the offender’s explanation, all raise a doubt about whether she committed an antisemitic hate crime.
Notwithstanding the above, Justice Maylor did find that Ms. Johnson’s actions and social media statements were alarming to some members of the Jewish community, citing the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre community impact statement.
The case demonstrates a critical need for judicial training in contemporary antisemitism and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism. To be clear, legitimate criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic. Demonizing Israel with age-old blood libels is not legitimate criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country.
R. vs. Gobin
In a starkly different case decided this week, Justice Michael Townsend of the Ontario Court of Justice in Newmarket sentenced Kenneth Gobin to 12 months in jail followed by 2 years of probation for assault by spitting on Tilda and Malcolm Roll and breach of probation.
The facts of the case as found by Justice Townsend were as follows: On January 6, 2024, Tilda and Malcolm Roll, in the company of Richard Amar and Anne Trojman were walking home from synagogue in their Thornhill neighborhood, when they were nearly run down by Kenneth Gobin who was riding his e-bike toward them in an erratic manner. Gobin sped past the couples but then stopped, turned around and came back to them, stopping in front of Tilda Roll.
He then spit on Mr. and Mrs. Roll and uttered words to the effect of “Hitler should have killed you all”, “Hitler was right” and “Hitler should have taken you out”. He then did the Nazi salute and said something like “hail Hitler”. At the time, Mr. Gobin was subject to a probation order.
On March 12, 2025, after a three-day trial held at the end of January 2025, Justice Townsend convicted Kenneth Gobin of two counts of assault and one count of breach of probation.
At a sentencing hearing held last week, the court heard victim impact statements from Tilda and Malcom Roll as well as Richard Amar and Anne Trojman. The court also heard three community impact statements: from B’nai Brith, the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre and from the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation (CAEF).
In a sentencing decision demonstrating moral clarity, Justice Townsend sentenced Mr. Gobin to 12 months in jail followed by 2 years probation. Importantly, Justice Townsend found that the prosecution had proven beyond a reasonable doubt, the statutory aggravating factor that Mr. Gobin was motivated by bias, prejudice or hate for the Jewish people pursuant to subsection 718.2(a)(i) of the Criminal Code. His Honour was clearly moved by the emotionally compelling victim impact and community impact statements.
He recognized that the Rolls as well as Mr. Amar and Ms. Trojman felt degraded, disrespected and dehumanized as a result of Mr. Gobin’s criminal conduct. Not only were his actions and words disgusting both morally and physically to the victims and witnesses who were directly affected, but their impact was felt by the Jewish community and the wider Canadian community as a whole. He further recognized that the Jewish people have been constantly, consistently, and repeatedly targeted by hate-fueled incidents and that targeting has caused the impact of those crimes to grow exponentially.
It was a breath of fresh air when Justice Townsend declared that the sentence imposed on Mr. Gobin must be one that recognizes that hate motivated offences against the Jewish people are on the rise – and the only way to address the principles of deterrence and denunciation (the key sentencing principles in this case) was to impose a significant jail sentence.
As Justice Townsend said, “Canadians deserve to feel safe. Safe from violence, safe from harm and safe from hate. Words can be a weapon, and sometimes words like the ones used by Mr. Gobin can inflict serious lasting injuries.”
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Endnotes
i) Starbucks was targeted by anti-Israel protestors after October 7, 2023, because of a mistaken belief that the company supported Israel in its defensive war against Hamas in Gaza. Starbucks’ CEO wants people to stop protesting its stores over Israel war in Gaza | CNN Business.
About the Author
Rochelle Direnfeld was called to the Ontario bar in 1990 and has served in the Ontario Public Service for over 32 years as an assistant crown attorney, deputy crown attorney, crown counsel, and finally as a deputy director for Toronto Crown Attorneys in the Criminal Law Division of the Ministry of the Attorney General. Rochelle retired from public service at the end of 2023. During her career, Rochelle prosecuted a wide variety of Criminal Code cases in the Ontario Court of Justice, Superior Court of Justice, and the Ontario Court of Appeal.
Rochelle focused a large part of her career on youth criminal justice, developing policy as well as training and lecturing crowns, the defence bar, the judiciary, and the police. Since 2019, Rochelle has been committed to battling hate motivated offences and has sat on the Attorney General’s Hate Crime Working Group, providing legal advice to crown counsel and police on hate crimes. In the aftermath of October 7, Rochelle returned to work with the Hate Crime Working Group at Crown Law Office - Criminal until November 2024. Rochelle also serves as vice-chair of the Board of Directors of BOOST Child and Youth Advocacy Centre, a wrap-around agency serving children and youth who have been victims of abuse, as well as their families.