A self-described antisemitic atheist has been accused of stabbing a an elderly Jewish woman in a grocery store in the Canadian capital of Ottawa.
Police charged Joseph Rooke, 71, this week with aggravated assault and possession of a dangerous weapon following the stabbing of a Jewish woman in her 70s on Wednesday at the Loblaws grocery store, home to one of the largest Kosher food sections in Ottawa.
According to the National Post, police said on Friday that they are considering the stabbing as potentially having been a hate-motivated crime and that they are investigating Rooke’s social media posts.
The paper reported that Rooke — who claims to be of native “First Nations” descent — regularly posted anti-religious sentiments online and had admitted to hating Jewish people.
In a post last Summer, he reportedly declared: “Yes I am antisemitic and atheist,” while describing the Jewish faith as the “world’s oldest cult”.
“Over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal,” he is said to have written.
In another social media post, Rooke reportedly wrote: “I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
The NP said that Rooke’s focus on Jews appeared to ramp up in the wake of the October 7th terror attacks on Israel by the Islamist Hamas terror group, which left around 1,200 people dead and hundreds more taken hostage.
Before that, his posts were focused on religion in general, the paper claimed. For instance, the Canadian broadsheet quoted him as saying that all world religions were beset by “ignorance and intransience” and that “only the brands differ —catholic, Anglican, evangelical, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, etc. At their base they are all nonetheless composed of nonsense.”
Rooke reportedly called for Christmas to be rebranded as a secular holiday called “Humanity Day” and had launched a legal challenge against the Canadian judiciary, which he accused of being fundamentally biased because the oath of office for judges include the phrase “so help me God.” He went on to call for the resignation of Supreme Court justices if they could not justify their belief in God with evidence.
According to the National Post, the Jewish woman stabbed in Ottawa has since been released from hospital. Rooke remains in custody and is set to appear again in court over the allegations on September 2nd.
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