The Nöam Fire: We May Have Gotten Ahead of Ourselves

By Howie Silbiger

Almost immediately after Nöam burned, the reaction across much of the Jewish community was predictable. A kosher restaurant in a heavily Jewish neighbourhood had been deliberately set on fire in the middle of the night and, after everything we have seen over the past two years, it was quickly labelled another anti-Jewish attack.

I understood the reaction completely. Jewish schools in Montreal have been shot at, synagogues have been attacked, Jewish businesses have been vandalized and Jews have been assaulted in the streets. We have become conditioned to expect the worst, and frankly, there have been enough incidents lately to justify that instinct.

Almost a week later, however, Montreal police still have not called the Nöam fire an anti-Jewish attack. The fire is being investigated as an arson and surveillance footage reportedly shows a man on the terrace deliberately starting it, apparently using an accelerant. Nöam itself has said the restaurant was targeted, what has not been established, at least publicly, is why.

That did not stop the story from moving well ahead of the investigation. Politicians were calling for a hate-crime investigation almost immediately and social media went considerably further. Some reports even gave the impression that police were already investigating the fire as an anti-Jewish crime, while subsequent local reporting made it clear that, at least at that point, they were not. Even Nöam’s manager was careful not to make that leap, saying they knew the restaurant had been targeted but could not say what the motive was.

For the past couple of years, we have complained that politicians, police and the media have been too reluctant to call anti-Jewish hatred what it is, and in many cases that criticism has been completely justified. But we also have to be careful that we don’t get so accustomed to expecting an anti-Jewish motive that we start assigning one before the evidence is there. A crime involving a Jewish business can certainly be an anti-Jewish crime, but the two are not automatically the same thing.

The Nöam fire may very well turn out to be exactly what many people believed it was from the beginning. Given what has happened in Montreal and elsewhere, nobody would be particularly surprised. But Montreal has also had more than its share of restaurant arsons connected to organized crime, extortion, business disputes and other criminal activity.

I am not suggesting any of those explanations apply to Nöam, I am simply saying that, at this point, police have not publicly told us what the motive was.

What I find interesting is how quickly so many of us filled in that missing part of the story ourselves. It probably says a great deal about where Montreal’s Jewish community is right now. After schools are shot at and synagogues attacked, you do not look at a burning kosher restaurant with the same innocence you might have a few years ago. The immediate assumption did not come out of nowhere, but an understandable assumption is still an assumption.

While the police investigation continues, the response from the community has been considerably easier to measure. The GoFundMe campaign launched to help Nöam rebuild has now raised $41,728 from 351 donors toward its $250,000 goal. Earlier in the week it was sitting at roughly $18,500, so more than $23,000 has been added in just a few days. The owners have also made it clear that they intend to rebuild at the same Décarie location and are looking at the possibility of operating somewhere temporarily while the work is being done.

There is no question that somebody deliberately set Nöam on fire, and there is certainly no question that people in the Jewish community have good reason to wonder whether the restaurant was targeted because it was Jewish. But almost a week later, police have still not made that connection publicly.

Until they do, or until evidence emerges that explains why someone wanted Nöam burned, that part of the story remains an open question.