An unsettling video taken outside the Israel pavilion at Edmonton’s Heritage Festival on Aug. 3 appears to show an individual brandishing a knife, before private security escorts them away while protesters nearby chant anti-Zionist slogans.
Posted to social media on Aug. 5, the initial footage of the minute-long video was taken inside the kitchen area of the pavilion, while a struggle to subdue an individual appears to be occurring just outside behind the tent. A person inside the tent asks, “Where’s the police?”
Next, private security guards, hired by the pavilion organizers, are shown escorting the individual away from the pavilion to the area where a crowd could be heard chanting, “All the Zionists are racists.”
A person uses a knife to tear through the tent of the Israeli pavilion at Edmonton’s heritage festival on Aug. 3, 2026. (Screenshot: @l3v1at4an/X)
In a photo accompanying the video post, the person is seen being handed over to the police.
Representatives of Edmonton’s Jewish community, while finding the attack alarming and thankful no one was hurt, were not surprised that such an incident would happen at a time when inflammatory rhetoric has become increasingly commonplace.
“When you have violent language, it’s not surprising that it leads to violent action,” Stacey Leavitt-Wright, the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Edmonton, who was at the pavilion at the time of the attack, told The CJN.
“Hateful rhetoric has real-world consequences because it’s normalizing the hostility towards our community and has an impact beyond the online world,” she said.
A protest against the Israel pavilion, organized by several groups, including Independent Jewish Voices Edmonton, Edmonton Jews Against Zionism and the Palestinian Student Alliance of MacEwan University, had been scheduled from 1:11 to 3:33 p.m. that day.
Leavitt-Wright said, in the course of the early afternoon, the protest escalated as the crowd increased, a megaphone came out, and people started chanting loudly. The protest became disruptive to the pavilion because of the way the tents were situated, moving closer to the dance stage.
As the protest grew in size and noise, police on bicycles arrived, maintaining a presence between the protesters and a group that consisted of Jewish community members and the local Iranian community who came to lend their support to the Israel pavilion.
The attempted knife attack happened close to 3 p.m. while the noise from the protest was intensifying and dancers were set to go on stage.
“We had the dancers and volunteers present shelter in place until things were sorted out for their safety and security, just to make sure that everything was all clear,” Leavitt-Wright said.
After a brief delay, the dancers scheduled to perform at 3 p.m. took the stage, and, according to organizers, many who were in the pavilion were unaware of what was taking place nearby.
Muslim organization alleges anti-Palestinian content
Meanwhile, a social media group, Muslim Connects – Edmonton, is calling on the festival to investigate the Israel pavilion for playing the song “Harbu Darbu,” a 2023 Israeli hip-hop number released shortly after Oct. 7, which some critics describe as a vitriolic attack on Palestinians and their supporters.
Organizers of the Israel pavilion said that, in the ensuing confusion following the knife incident, they decided to play music on the stage. When one of their volunteers recognized the song was playing, they quickly stopped the recording.
The Jewish Federation of Edmonton sent an apology to festival organizers for playing the song and said that they will have a vetted playlist ready in the future.
The presence of the Israel pavilion at the festival had been the subject of continuing opposition from pro-Palestinian groups. In May, a joint letter from Independent Jewish Voices Edmonton and Edmonton Jews Against Zionism called on festival organizers not to include the Israel pavilion.
Earlier this summer, Edmonton city councillor Michael Janz also publicly suggested that “certain countries” should not be included in the festival as their presence would make many residents of the city “uncomfortable.”
On July 10, Janz posted on social media, “If you have a newborn baby, right now, anywhere in the world, your brand new baby is statistically more likely to be killed by Israel than dying in any other way.”
Israel’s longstanding presence at the festival
The Edmonton Heritage Festival is one of the largest multicultural events in Canada, featuring 67 pavilions that attract hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. The Israel pavilion and volunteers from the Jewish Federation of Edmonton have been a regular presence at the festival for 47 years.
This year’s pavilion featured a story wall that presented moments from Israel’s history, along with large photo canvases, activities such as an archaeology dig for children, and a market curated from Israeli products.
Close to 70 people volunteered for the Israel pavilion at the 2026 festival. Attendance numbers were down this year as the festival reduced hours due to heavy rainfall and strong winds on Saturday and Sunday. An estimated 100,000 visitors attended the festival on Monday.
Some who have posted the video online described the suspect as a Somalian man. The CJN has been unable to confirm the person’s identity and nationality.
The Edmonton Police Service has not issued a statement on the reported knife incident. According to representatives of the Jewish community, the investigation is still active.