Man arrested after swastikas spray-painted on doors of Montreal synagogue
MONTREAL (JTA) — One of Montreal’s largest synagogues was found with its doors spray-painted with large swastikas Wednesday, and a synagogue guard played a role in arresting the man suspected of the vandalism.
The man who was apprehended reportedly brought a canister of gasoline to Congregation Shaar Hashomayim, a 160-year-old Modern Orthodox synagogue that is known internationally for nurturing, and burying, the legendary singer and poet Leonard Cohen.
Police were summoned to the scene at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday and arrested a 28-year-old man they said would be evaluated for mental health problems, according to local news reports.
Canadian Jewish groups decried the vandalism, with Rabbi Reuben Poupko of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs calling it “vile” and B’nai Brith Canada’s CEO Michael Mostyn calling it “a jarring reminder of the constant need for vigilance in protecting our Jewish communal institutions.”
The synagogue, like others in Montreal, is currently closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. That was the case as well in May, when vandals ransacked a different Montreal Orthodox synagogue, destroying its Torah scrolls in the process.
The mayor of Westmount, the upscale suburb where the synagogue is located, issued a statement condemning the vandalism.
But Congregation Shaar Hashomayim’s rabbi, Adam Scheier, told local media that he had come to expect anti-Semitic incidents. “One is not surprised when another anti-Semitic attack happens against one of the beloved institutions in our community,” he said.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO