Montreal’s Jewish community was still struggling to understand Tuesday whether antisemitism was the motive behind a deadly attack in the predominantly Jewish neighbourhood of Côte-des-Neiges that left a police officer and bystander dead.
“It was obviously a horrible, horrible attack and really unfortunate,” said Yair Szlak, the chief executive officer of the Federation CJA, a Jewish organization in Montreal.
When he was first informed of the attack, “of course your mind immediately goes towards antisemitism,” Szlak told National Post, in a phone interview while he was just down the road from the site of the shooting.
Daniel Benlolo, a reverend at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of Montreal , got “a slew of people sending messages that it was antisemitic,” he told the Post. “The news started putting two and two together. It’s a Jewish neighbourhood: it must be antisemitic.”
However, Szlak warned against news reports and social media chatter that framed the attack as antisemitic, given the early nature of the police investigation, and Benlolo agreed with his cautionary tone.
Szlak appreciates why many Montreal Jews feel vulnerable, particularly in light of high-profile antisemitic incidents since October 7. “The Jewish community that’s been under attack with various antisemitic incidents — whether it’s shootings at schools, the infamous Jew in a noose paraded down Sherbrooke Street — we know what antisemitism looks like,” Szlak said. “I’m not willing to jump ahead and say this was antisemitism.”
The suspected manifesto of the alleged shooter references several factors he attributed to “the situation of terrible loneliness, isolation, and social degradation that is now a stark reality for many men of varying ages across our societies.” While rhetoric in the document has been described as displaying the hallmarks of involuntary celibacy (incels), a misogynistic movement, it also contains several anti-capitalist and antisemitic passages.
“The influence of Zionist Jews upon the western bourgeoisie is in fact so strong that in my other works I sometimes refer to the western ruling class itself as the Judaeo-bourgeois class,” the alleged document reads .
The manifesto’s list of “valid potential class A targets” exhibits antisemitic undertones, such as references to “slumlords” and “elite bankers” as well as overt references to “influential Zionists” and “all corporations with ties to Zionism are fair game: IBM, Microsoft, Boeing, etc.”
Szlak said that he is aware that the alleged manifesto contains antisemitic and anti-Zionist themes, but said that “jumping to a conclusion at this particular point would be too early for us.” The 104-page document also lists other targets, including oil CEOs, plastic surgeons, cryptocurrency leaders and pickup artists.
Szlak said that he was in touch with the son of Michael (Michel) Moshe Mizrahi , the Lebanese Jewish man who was killed during the firefight, and mourned his passing. “We’ve lost a member of our community,” the Jewish community leader said.
Former Liberal justice minister Irwin Cotler grew up in the neighbourhood and represented it as an MP. He is also international chair of the nearby Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. “I also knew the Jewish victim, Moshe Mizrahi, a kind man with a ready smile who would greet me warmly whenever we met,” Cotler said in an email. He offered condolences to the victims’ families and commended Montreal police “for their rapid arrival which prevented further tragedies.”
Jimmy Pardo, a member of the Montreal Jewish community, called Mizrahi “a wonderful man” who was “very well known in the community.” Pardo said he had seen Mizrahi at synagogue this past weekend and that the latter had been called up to the Torah, a special occasion known as an aliyah in Judaism.
Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, representing Mount Royal, told the Post during a call on Tuesday afternoon that he had just visited the site of the shooting and said the experience was deeply moving. “To see the solidarity, the spirit of defiance, the sentiment of we’re not going to let hate win,” he said. “I was really gratified to see that.”
Housefather acknowledged and highlighted the sacrifice of slain Const. Mohamed Lamine Benredouane, “who’s Muslim, who grew up in our community and who was a wonderful police officer that many people knew,” the parliamentarian said.
“He accompanied us on marches. He protected us on parades. He was a great guy and he died a hero.”
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