{"id":695694,"date":"2026-05-26T21:25:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T21:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/695694\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T21:25:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T21:25:12","slug":"tearing-down-a-missing-girls-posters-is-grotesque","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/695694\/","title":{"rendered":"Tearing down a missing girl\u2019s posters is grotesque"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A poster lies on the ground in an area of Earl Bales Park in Toronto, as efforts continue to locate 14-year-old Esther last Wednesday.Chris Young\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

It is every parent\u2019s nightmare: a missing child. One Toronto family is living that nightmare \u2013 and more. A 14-year-old girl named Esther, known as Esti, disappeared<\/a> on May 15 from Toronto\u2019s Earl Bales Park at Bathurst Ave. and Sheppard Ave. There was a confirmed sighting just after midnight on May 16, about a half-hour walk south. She is on the autism spectrum, and when she left home, she was not wearing shoes. Her family has pleaded with her to return.<\/p>\n

\u201cEsti, my love, if you are watching this, please come home,\u201d her mother Shira told reporters<\/a> last week. \u201cPlease know this clearly: you are not in trouble. Nobody is angry with you. No matter what has happened, all we care about is knowing that you are okay.\u201d (The Canadian Jewish News<\/a> has reported that the girl ran away after a family argument.) <\/p>\n

A $25,000 reward is being offered for information leading to her safe return.<\/p>\n

The family of this girl is dealing not only with this terror, but also an unfathomable addition to their pain: someone is \u2013 or, more likely, some people are \u2013 ripping down the posters advertising that she is missing. The posters have largely been put up in North York, as well as just north of the city, in Thornhill. They are being repeatedly torn down almost as soon as they\u2019re put up, according to a family statement shared with The Globe and Mail.<\/p>\n

Toronto police share updated photo, new website in search for missing teen<\/a><\/p>\n

Not that it should matter, but Esti is Jewish. This has been fairly obvious from the coverage, given that she comes from a visibly Orthodox family, that the volunteer Jewish community-watch group Shomrim is organizing searches \u2013 and postering \u2013 and that the Jewish community has been vocally and visibly supportive. <\/p>\n

So the question can\u2019t help but be asked: are these posters being torn down because this girl is Jewish?<\/p>\n

One would really hope not. But how can one not speculate this is the reason, given the global tearing-down of the \u201cMissing\u201d Israeli hostage posters, some with photos of kidnapped children, after the Oct. 7 Hamas abductions? Did this misguided protest phenomenon leak into the search for Esti? Is the current stew of antisemitism cooking in cities like Toronto the cause of this cruel campaign?<\/p>\n

The family worries this may in fact be the case. <\/p>\n

As awful as the ripping down of those Oct. 7 hostage posters was \u2013 as well as defacing them with swastikas \u2013 this current de-postering is, in practical terms, much worse. The hostage posters were an initiative to raise awareness and act as an outlet for grief as a worldwide community agonized over the fate of people abducted an ocean away. Of course the hostages were not going to be found at Bathurst and Sheppard.<\/p>\n

But Esti might be. This is a scenario where police and family are desperately trying to find an adolescent who could be in peril. Having her face plastered on trees and telephone poles is actually helpful.<\/p>\n

\u201cHelping bring a missing child home safely should never be political or controversial,\u201d the family statement reads. And: \u201cThis is not about politics. This is about a missing 14-year-old girl.\u201d <\/p>\n

How are we in a time when this actually needs to be said?<\/p>\n

If whoever is tearing these down is doing so because they\u2019re mad at Israel \u2013 for its war in Gaza, the Palestinian occupation, its targeting of Hezbollah in Lebanon, its treatment of Canadians on the flotilla, or for simply existing \u2013 you should know enough to know that Esti has nothing to do with any of that. She\u2019s just a missing kid. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand reports of these posters being torn down are upsetting for the community,\u201d Toronto Police Service media spokesperson Viktor Sarudi said by e-mail on Monday. \u201cHowever, removing posters is not necessarily a criminal offence. Our focus remains on the investigation to find Esther.\u201d<\/p>\n

Criminal offence or not, this is incomprehensibly offensive. You think you know your neighbours, people with whom you share sidewalks and subways. And then this happens. This should be upsetting for the entire community \u2013 not just its Jewish members.<\/p>\n

I hope by the time you read this, Esti has been found safe. But nothing will erase this vile act, tearing down the face of a missing girl, taped up by people desperate to find her. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: A poster lies on the ground in an area of Earl Bales Park…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,20754,5152,251759,251758,927,1008,3302],"class_list":["post-695694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-column","tag-dei","tag-lederman","tag-marsha-lederman","tag-opinion","tag-pleasemod","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}