Dylan Ifrah
Staff Writer
Art via Zach Gross
Montreal’s Jewish community has a long and storied history. The Spanish and Portuguese, Canada’s first synagogue was established by Sephardic Jews in 1768. Today, 90,000 Jews, who make up approximately 2.5% of Montreal's population, live in the city, where they continue to maintain synagogues, schools, community organizations, and more. In certain neighborhoods such as Cote-St Luc and Hampstead, Jews make up 62% and 75% of the population respectively.
However, recent events surrounding the October 7th massacre, and the resulting protests in prestigious schools such as McGill and on the streets of Montreal; as well as a changing Quebec society, in which French becomes more dominant have made many Montreal Jews question if their status in the city, as well as in Quebec and Canada is still what it once was.
Since the events surrounding October 7th and the subsequent war in Gaza, Jews in Montreal have experienced an unprecedented rise in violence that targets them. In May, Montreal’s Jewish community were shocked and terrified when, for the second time in only a few days, a Jewish school was shot at. Additionally, over a dozen synagogues and places of worship were placed on an “at risk” list of Jewish institutions in Canada. A report by the SPVM, Montreal’s police force has shown that Jews are the people most targeted for hate crimes.
As a result, Synagogues and Jewish institutions across the city have been forced to hire more security for events during which they would have felt completely safe only a few years ago. This environment of discomfort and fear is upsetting to many Jews, even those who are not religious.
In Cegeps and universities, pro-Palestinian groups have continued to hold frequent protests such as the months long McGill encampments; where chants of “go back to Europe” were hurled at Jewish students. At Concordia University, a school whose reputation as a hotbed for anti-Israel students and Jew haters precedes it, incidents of intimidation and violence against Jewish students led to numerous restraining orders against pro-Palestinian groups and individuals.
Additionally, off-campus protests by groups such as Montreal4Palestine have featured explicitly antisemitic speakers. For example, at a protest in October, 2023, Montreal Imam Adil Charkaoui prayed that “Allah, take care of these Zionist aggressors. Allah, take care of the enemies of the people of Gaza. Allah, identify them all, then exterminate them. And don’t spare any of them.” Incredibly, the RCMP declined to press hate speech charges against Charkaoui, claiming that after a “rigorous” investigation, it had concluded that Charkaouis statements did not constitute a criminal offense.
Events such as these have made Montreal’s Jewish community feel increasingly isolated. Whereas when growing up, most people never imagined that they would have to worry about sharing their identity publicly, many now feel that it is unsafe to be openly Jewish, and that as a result they must hide their identities. This reflects the unfortunate reality many Jewish communities around the world are beginning to grapple with. For example, 86% of French Jews say that they “live in fear”. In times past, many French Jews leaving France chose to settle in Montreal for its warm community as well as its safety. However, that may sadly no longer be the case.
Additionally, Quebec’s decades’ long saga of French protection laws have already affected Montreal’s largely anglophone Jewish community. Following Quebec’s first set of French laws in the 1970s, an estimated 30,000-40,000, mostly young and well-educated Jews left the city to resettle in Ottawa, Toronto, New York, or even Israel.
With Quebec’s current ruling party, the Coalition Avenir Quebec’s latest French laws, (notably Bill 96 which ensures that French is the only official language of Quebec and restricts the ability of many students to access education in English Cegeps), the situation of Quebec’s historic minority communities has become even more precarious.
Surely, these increasingly unpleasant conditions will force many young members of the Jewish community to reconsider their futures in Montreal and to ask themselves: do I really want to live in a place where I don’t feel safe being myself?
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