Montreal synagogue firebombed for 2nd time in just over a year; Trudeau: ‘Vile antisemitism’

Assailants firebombed a synagogue in a Montreal suburb for the second time in just over a year, the latest in a series of attacks on Canadian Jewish institutions since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel.

As in the other recent attacks on Canadian Jewish sites, no one was injured in the incident.

Mordecai Zeitz, the emeritus rabbi at Congregation Beth Tikvah, a modern Orthodox synagogue in the suburb of Dollard-des-Ormeaux, says the congregants met for morning prayers on Wednesday morning outside the synagogue.

“We were able to recite the morning prayers in an abbreviated way,” he said.”We did not close even if we had to go outside to avoid the fires on the inside, but we had the fires of Jewish identity and Jewish pride very much front and center, in front of the charred doors of the synagogue,” Zeitz tells the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Flames were seen rising from the building at around 3 a.m. local time Wednesday. Police later said they found an “incendiary device” near the scene.

“The damage is minor, we are talking about smashed windows and damage caused by smoke from the fire,” Montreal police spokeswoman Veronique Dubuc tells AFP.

There were no injuries, she says.

Witnesses saw a “suspicious man” leave the area right after the fire broke out, she says, and a another building belonging to a Jewish community group was also damaged nearby.

A criminal investigation is underway, but Dubuc says it’s too early to attribute a motive, while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau denounces the “cowardly” and “vile antisemitic attack.”