Canada urged to fight antisemitism after second arson at a synagogue

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Politicians and Jewish leaders are urging officials to do more to prevent antisemitic attacks after a Montreal synagogue was firebombed for the second time since the October 7 massacre.

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Police responded to a fire at Congregation Beth Tikvah at 3 a.m. Wednesday morning and found the remnants of a firebomb that had been thrown through a window. The attack drew widespread condemnation from at home and abroad.

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The “fire-bombing of the synagogue is not a one-off event,” human rights lawyer Irwin Cotler told National Post in a written statement. He called it “part of a pattern of an exponential rise in hate crimes and incendiary hate speech incentivized by a culture of impunity as in the absence of accountability of the crime of willful promotion of hatred.”

Cotler, whom the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) alleged last month was the target of an Iranian assassination plot, called for a strategic response from all levels of government.

“What is so necessary now is strategic policy direction at the governmental and municipal level around the 4 Ps: prevention of the crime to begin with; protection of the target; prosecution of the perpetrators; and partnerships among federal, provincial and municipal authorities,” the founder of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights said.

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement on X that Service de Police de la Ville de Montréal is investigating the “hateful act.”

“This vile antisemitic attack against Montreal’s Jewish community is cowardly and criminal,” he wrote.

Meanwhile, Conservative Party Deputy Leader Melissa Lantsman laid the ongoing failure to protect Canadian Jews at the feet of the prime minister.

“There is no question that Canada has become a more dangerous place for the Jewish people under the divisiveness of Justin Trudeau that has stoked it. Another day brings another brazen act of antisemitic hate, and it’s well overdue that the government do something or anything to protect Canadians. These lawless mob of lowlifes must be brought to justice,” she told the Post in a written statement.

Calls are also mounting within the Liberal Party for a more forceful response to antisemitism. In a post on X, Mount Royal Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, who had his Bar Mitzvah at the synagogue, denounced the “deplorable attack” and called on authorities to “make every effort to quick arrest anyone responsible” in the firebombing. On Thursday morning, Housefather – who was appointed Trudeau’s special advisor on Jewish Community Relations in July – published a public letter addressed to Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante demanding stricter law enforcement to ensure the protection of the city’s beleaguered Jewish community.

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“These hate activities are overwhelmingly directed against the Jewish community, students and faculty, and ordinary citizens on our streets. They are also being directed against people living in quiet residential neighbourhoods in Westmount and merchants around them. As a result, most within the Jewish community and many other residents of the Montreal Island are feeling unsafe,” the letter reads.

“We are asking you, as the Mayor and chief of staff to ensure, through policy direction, that there is zero tolerance for antisemitic crime activity in our city, and that as a matter of policy and strategic guidance, the police robustly use the criminal law tools and municipal bylaws available to them to protect the public.”

The statement, co-signed by Côte Saint-Luc Mayor Mitchell Brownstein and Westmount Mayor Christina Smith, leaders of two Montreal suburbs, explained that the “current approach is flawed” and highlighted several law enforcement shortcomings.

Among the trio’s suggestions included a failure to pursue hate speech criminally and an “overreliance on non-enforcement as a form of de-escalation,” which they argued “has emboldened protesters and demonstrators to engage in intimidating, violent acts and unequivocal hate speech, and thus, ultimately, has not successfully addressed the unsafe and toxic situation in our city.”

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The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), a leading Canadian Jewish group, also called on Plante to step up. “Over the last 14 months, this is the seventh instance where a Jewish institution has been targeted in Montreal and the second time these specific institutions were targeted, chilling reminders of what happens when politicians fail to call out antisemitism and prevent the escalation of violence on our streets,” the group wrote in a joint statement Wednesday alongside Federation CJA, a Montreal-based Jewish organization.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog called the attack “appalling” and “yet another example of the vile wave of violence, hatred, and intimidation to which Jews in Canada – and all over the world – have been subjected in recent weeks and months,” in a post on X Wednesday afternoon.

“The world must wake up, words are not enough: synagogues burned, Jews attacked — NEVER AGAIN IS NOW. Following this terrible attack especially, I call on the Canadian government to act decisively, and show that such hatred will not be tolerated,” he wrote.

Congregation Beth Tikvah was founded in 1964 and explains online that it has “nearly 600 families as members” within its community, which is called “home to North America’s fastest growing Jewish community.”

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Local police were dispatched to the synagogue early Wednesday after a flammable projectile was thrown at the house of worship, broke a window and ignited inside. Nearby walls were burned before first responders arrived. Later in the morning, law enforcement discovered two windows had been destroyed at a nearby Federation CJA Jewish community building.

In November 2023, one month after the Hamas invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, both properties were attacked in a similar fashion with a Molotov cocktail thrown at the synagogue and a small fire started at the back exit of the Federation CJA building.

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