Canada: Montreal’s oldest synagogue vandalized with swastikas

Vandals painted a swastika on an old synagogue in Montreal. This prompted the Canadian Jewish Watchdog to ask Mayor Valerie Blunt to do more to fight anti-Semitism.

Temple leaders met on Bag Street on Wednesday with the city’s police hate crimes unit.. Photographs taken of B’nai Brith Canada show Nazi swastikas sprayed on the front doors.

The synagogue dates back to 1906. It moved to its current location in 1921, where it remains and is the oldest Jewish building in continuous use in Quebec. He inherited the furniture of the historic Char Hashomaim synagogue when that congregation moved to a new location in 1922.

While formal membership has dwindled, the Bagg Street Synagogue offers free holiday services and welcomes tourists who visit the city’s old ghetto. In the first half of the 20th century, a boom in Jewish immigration led to the establishment of at least a dozen synagogues in the area..

“While the congregation is small, the synagogue evokes Montreal’s Jewish history and the attack causes panic in the community,” wrote Marvin Rotran, former city councilman and national director of the Bnay Human Rights League. Breathe in a letter to Blunt where he urges her to be “More proactive in combating anti-Semitism.”