A British Columbia man who defaced a historic synagogue in Victoria with "unquestionably hateful" statements has been sentenced to eight months in jail.
B.C. provincial court Judge Micah Rankin's ruling released this week says Arthur Roberts pleaded guilty to mischief and uttering threats, after he admitted to defacing the Congregation Emanu-El synagogue in downtown Victoria in the summer of 2025.
Rankin's ruling says the synagogue is "the oldest continually operating synagogue on the west coast of North America," founded in 1859, and a congregant discovered graffiti in small lettering outside its vestibule last August.
The ruling says Roberts admitted to defacing the religious site with messages describing Jewish people as "evil" and "monsters" and child murderers.
The judge found Roberts committed a hate crime by intending to expose Jewish people to a "hateful message" upon entering their place of worship.
The judge gave Roberts six months for the mischief charge, and another two months for an uttering threats charge that arose after he sent his mother a text message in June 2026 expressing a desire to kill police.
Roberts was arrested by Victoria officers on Aug. 22, 2025, after the release of CCTV footage led to him being identified by a member of the public.
The ruling handed down in Victoria on Monday said Roberts expressed remorse for his actions, describing him as an "extremely isolated" 54-year-old man with mental-health problems.
The judge found Roberts may have been "subjectively" motivated to deface the synagogue over the events in Gaza, but "the words 'Stop the Jews' identify Jews themselves, rather than the State of Israel, its government, or its military, as the object of condemnation."
"To be clear, criticism of the State of Israel, even extremely harsh criticism, is not itself necessarily antisemitic. It is the collective attribution of responsibility to all Jews for the actions of Israel that renders the words antisemitic," the judge wrote.
"The fact that this offence involved damage to a religious edifice, coupled with antisemitic hate speech, is highly aggravating"
The ruling said the effect on congregants was "'profoundly negative," including attendees of a bar mitzvah that happened the day after Roberts' defaced the building, occurring amid the "broader context of increasing antisemitic incidents across Canada."
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito
