Montreal Jewish Neighborhood Hit With Swastikas

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Envelopes on the windshields of at least one of four vandalized cars in a Jewish neighborhood of Montreal contained single bullets and the message “You Will Die.”
The cars in an apartment building garage in the Notre-Dame-de-Grace neighborhood were spray-painted with large red swastikas on their hoods. The swastikas faced the wrong way and one windshield was smashed with a pickaxe, which was left behind. Two of the car owners were Jewish.
The vandalism, which was discovered Monday night, is being treated as a hate crime by police. The cars were found after residents gathered in the lobby of the building after the fire alarm went off at 10 p.m. and a resident checked the garage.
“[T]his was not just an act of simple vandalism but a crime targeting the Jewish community,” said Rabbi Reuben Poupko of the community’s main advocacy group, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.
The Quebec Legislature passed a unanimous motion deploring the incident.
Why I became the Forward’s Editor-in-Chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
