Montreal synagogue firebombed for second time since Hamas onslaught against Israel

"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, said 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 told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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

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

Assailants tossed a firebomb at the same synagogue in November 2023 just weeks after Hamas’ invasion, which launched Israel’s multi-front war. There have been a number of similar attacks on Canadian Jewish institutions since then, including shots fired at Jewish schools.

In August, bomb threats were sent to dozens of Jewish institutions across Canada.

This week’s attack also comes after a violent pro-Palestinian demonstration in Montreal in late November where protesters burned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in effigy. And it comes roughly two weeks after an Australian synagogue was firebombed..."