After swastikas sprayed on synagogue, director says Montreal still 'wonderful place to be Jewish'

One of Quebec's oldest operating synagogue opened nearly two decades before the Second World War at the corner of Clark and Bagg streets in Montreal.

But 78 years after the Nazi Party's fall from power, swastikas were scribbled on the Bagg Street Shul's entrance — black spray paint carelessly scrawled on the front door's window, brickwork and a plaque.

"My mom, who passed away, is a Holocaust survivor and went through the camps," said Sam Sheraton, a member of the Orthodox Jewish synagogue.

"And those images are very hurtful for us."

He said he was "quite shocked" to see the Nazi symbol on his house of worship, and it was particularly painful to see it on the window as it was reminiscent of the Night of Broken Glass in 1938. That's when the windows of Jewish-owned stores, buildings and synagogues were smashed in Germany.

The synagogue's director, Michael Kaplan, said it's the first time the Bagg Street Shul, originally named the Congregation Temple Solomon, has been targeted with antisemitic graffiti, but he still feels welcome in the neighbourhood.

Seven generations of Kaplan's family have prayed in the heritage building, and the surrounding community has long been supportive, he said.

Though offensive, this particular vandalism is getting blown out of proportion, Kaplan said. He compared the spray-painted swastika to illegal graffiti on the side of the building or the trash left on the building's front steps.

"Montreal is a wonderful place to be Jewish and I don't want stuff like this to get in the way of that message," said Kaplan.

"People really get along, but obviously there's going to be somebody who doesn't. There's always going to be an outlier somewhere. But we don't build our lives around outliers."

Calling for hate-crime prevention

The vandalism happened sometime between Sunday and Monday. Corey Fleischer, who runs a non-profit called Erasing Hate, cleaned the swastikas off the building for free Wednesday morning.

"The season is starting for graffiti so it's starting to pop up more," Fleischer said.

A spokesperson for Montreal police said they are aware of the situation and their hate crimes squad will meet with Kaplan in the next few days.

However, Marvin Rotrand, the national director of B'nai Brith's League of Human Rights, told CBC News the city, provincial and federal governments should all be doing more to combat antisemitism.

A B'nai Brith audit found there were 36 violent hate-crime incidents targeting Jews in Quebec in 2021, with most being in Montreal, said Rotrand, a former city councillor. That made up nearly half of all the incidents in the entire country in 2021, he added.

According to Statistics Canada, there were 3,360 police-reported hate crimes in the country in 2021, with 487 targeting the Jewish religion. That's up from 331 in 2020 and 306 in 2019.

There are 90,000 Jewish people in Quebec, with most living on the island of Montreal, Rotrand said, but the city still has a high number of antisemitic incidents.

The vandalism of the Bagg Street Shul was "another obvious hate crime," said Rotrand.

After he wrote to Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante to inform her of the issue, she wrote back to tell him the city is taking the situation seriously, he said.

Still, Rotrand said all levels of government need to do more to squash antisemitism.

"We need political leadership," he said. "We need the province and the city to realize there's a problem and to work with the community to put the tools in place to eradicate it."

Mayor says there's no place for discrimination

On Twitter Tuesday, Plante said the desecration of the Bagg Street Shul is "absolutely unacceptable."

"I am wholeheartedly with the Jewish community and I strongly condemn these antisemitic acts which have no place in our society," she said.

• Montreal police investigate assault on Jewish man as a hate crime

When asked during a news conference on Wednesday what the city is doing to combat antisemitism, the mayor said the message is clear: There's no place for any type of discrimination or racism.

Plante said her administration is working with police and communities to ensure people are safe no matter who they are.

She said she is standing behind Montreal's Jewish population, recognizing the community is in shock after seeing the symbol of hate scrawled on the historic synagogue.

"And we are shocked too," said Plante.