Montreal Canada – Val David Mayor Pierre Lapointe came to an Outremont synagogue last week to reassure chassidic summer residents that the Laurentian village is still a safe place for them despite the arson of a family home there.
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Lapointe made the visit the day after a house in an enclave of about 110 dwellings owned by Satmar families was destroyed in an overnight fire June 5. [as reported here]
He told them at the closed-door meeting that his council has “zero tolerance” for anti-Semitism and will do what it can to ensure Jewish residents’ safety. He said he will see that any apparently hate-motivated incidents are looked into, although policing of the vast Laurentians is limited.
An attempt was made to set the same house ablaze on the previous Saturday morning, but that fire was contained quickly by firefighters. Damage to the two-storey house, which was a year or two old, is estimated at more than $200,000. None of the homeowners was in the vicinity at the time of either incident. [candajewishnews]
This is a terrible story, it is not the first and I fear it will not be the last.
Why are our community leaders quiet? They should be lobbying the government to take a stronger stance when it comes to hate crimes like these.
Instead, the only person/people that respond to such incidents are a tiny self interest group that really has no backing of the Jewish community and jumps on any opportunity to be in the media (claiming to represent 8,000 Jews).
If our real leaders stay quiet when serious anti-Semitic acts arise in our midst, people say that if the local community leaders aren’t concerned then it must not be that serious.
Anti-Semitic acts are on the rise in Montreal, french news media continue to report stories about how the Hassidic community leave garbage all over the streets, and are not friendly with their neighbours. When our Jewish leaders refrain from commenting on such stories, the “world” figures it must be true, hence the Jews are somewhat at fault for what is happening to them.
Leaders please react!!!!!!!