Last June, the National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, was vandalized by Iain Aspenlieder, a middle-aged lawyer formerly employed by the city. He daubed the words “FEED ME” in blood-red paint on the memorial, which commemorates the victims of the Holocaust and recognizes the 40,000 or so Jewish survivors who found a new home in Canada after World War II.
My late parents, David and Genia, were among the survivors who immigrated to this country following the war. As their only child back then, I accompanied them on the voyage from Germany to Halifax and the rail trip to Montreal in the winter of 1948. So I have a very personal interest in this unsettling incident.
The memorial that Aspenlieder so brazenly violated is architecturally striking. Consisting of monumental walls of varying dimensions and angles, it is laid out in the shape of an elongated Star of David and sits across the Canadian War Museum. Inaugurated by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on September 27, 2017, it was designed by a multidisciplinary design team composed of Studio Daniel Libeskind, Claude Cormier + Associés, the photographer Edward Burtynsky, Lord Cultural Resources, and the University of Toronto historian Doris Bergen.
Aspenlieder, in a reckless act of solidarity with the Palestinians, defaced the monument as the Israel-Hamas war raged in the Gaza Strip. Like some supporters of the Palestinian cause, he conflated Jews in the Diaspora with the State of Israel and appears to have blamed them for the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians during Israel’s fierce but just military campaign in Gaza.
Arrested shortly after his attack, he pleaded guilty to one count of mischief relating to war memorials. It was the first time this penalty had been applied to a sentence since its addition to the Criminal Code in 2014.
Several days ago, the case was settled when an Ontario Superior Court judge, Anne London-Weinstein, handed him a suspended sentence and two years of probation. Aspenlieder had already spent 152 days in prison.
The acting deputy crown attorney, Moiz Karimjee, had demanded a two-year sentence with credit for time served, followed by three years of probation. He argued that while Aspenlieder had many lawful avenues at his disposal to vent his pro-Palestinian position, he decided on a tactic that would hold Jewish Canadians responsible for Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians.
Aspenlieder’s lawyer, Michael Spratt, agreed that his client should be punished and saddled with a criminal record. But he claimed that Karimjee had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Aspenlieder had been motivated by hateful intentions.
Spratt’s argument was hardly compelling, at least in the view of Jewish community members. Last year, as The Ottawa Citizen reported, the court heard victim impact statements from them. They said they felt fear and pain after waking up to the news of Aspenlieder’s rampage.
In her decision on January 7, Justice Anne London-Weinstein basically agreed with Spratt. She said that Karimjee had not proven that Aspenlieder’s actions were motivated by hatred of Jews.
She also said that Aspenlieder’s crime was worthy of a five-month sentence, for which he had served 101 days in custody. As The Canadian Jewish News reported, she gave him credit for 51 more days based on his 130 days on bail with requirements “so strict that in the end he surrendered himself to custody.”
During this period, he was forbidden to see his children, leave home without permission, or discuss the Israel-Palestine conflict with anyone apart from his doctors and lawyer.
As a first-time offender, London-Weinstein noted, his sentence should follow the principle of restraint, particularly since she had received eleven letters of support claiming that Aspenlieder had “always been a good, decent, pro-social person who tried to love others.”
By defacing the monument, she said, he seemed to act “out of character … consistent with emerging mental health issues.” She added that they were “concerning enough that he was hospitalized … just prior to desecrating the national Holocaust memorial.”
However, London-Weinstein said that he was not only proud of his attack, but perfectly aware that it would traumatize the Jewish community. Aspenlieder, given his educational and occupational background, should have known better than to desecrate the Holocaust memorial, she noted.
In light of Aspenlieder’s beliefs and actions, one can only surmise that he has been treated too leniently.
Jamie Kirzner-Roberts, the senior director of policy and advocacy of the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center, expressed disappointment in “the judge’s view that the vandalism was not motivated by hatred.”
“At a time when antisemitic incidents are rising across Canada, this minimal sentence sends the wrong message — that even the desecration of a national Holocaust memorial can be met without meaningful consequences,” he said, noting that International Holocaust Remembrance Day will be marked on January 27. “True accountability is essential if we are serious about confronting antisemitism and protecting spaces of remembrance.”
Richard Marceau, the senior vice-president and general counsel for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said that the sentence “does not reflect the gravity of what is indeed a hateful act and its impact on the Jewish community, not only in Ottawa but across Canada.
“It’s said that the Holocaust did not begin with gas chambers or death marches; it began with hateful propaganda, dehumanization, and violent mobs on the streets. This deliberate act of desecration reminds us that the same forces of rhetoric, radicalization, and violent extremism are resurfacing, and we must confront them with vigilance and resolve.”
B’nai Brith Canada similarly questioned the claim that Aspenlieder’s vandalism was not driven by hateful intent.
“How can you intentionally target the National Holocaust Monument without being motivated by hatred?” said Richard Robertson, B’nai Brith Canada’s director of research and advocacy. “Aspenlieder chose to target the Holocaust monument because he knew it would traumatize the Jewish community, demonstrating clear antisemitic motivations. This sentence brings into question the sanctity of Canada’s Holocaust monument and the memory of the victims and survivors of the Shoah.”
Lawrence Greenspon, a criminal defence and personal injury lawyer and the co-chairman of the National Holocaust Monument Committee, acknowledged that a five-month sentence, with two years of probation, was significant for a first-time offender.
“I think (this decision) sets the bar properly to act as a general deterrent for haters and antisemites in the future,” he said. “It is the National Holocaust Monument, the place where he chose to put his message, that is important.”
Greenspon, though, pointed out that the war in Gaza had fuelled a global upsurge in antisemitism. By any reasonable definition, Aspenlieder was a participant in this outbreak of hatred.