Montreal Jewish News is an independent news publication covering the stories, people and issues affecting Montreal’s Jewish community.
The publication was created because too many stories involving Jewish Montreal were being ignored, misunderstood or reported without the background needed to explain what was really happening. Montreal has one of the oldest and most diverse Jewish communities in Canada, yet much of its daily life receives little serious coverage outside the community. When Jewish stories do reach the larger media, they are often reduced to a few quotes, a police statement or a passing reference to antisemitism.
Montreal Jewish News was established to provide something different.
We cover local news, politics, education, religion, community organizations, Jewish institutions, Israel, antisemitism and the broader issues affecting Jewish life in Montreal, Quebec and Canada. We also report on international stories when they have a direct connection to Jewish communities at home.
Our work includes breaking news, original reporting, investigations, interviews, historical features, analysis and opinion. We are willing to ask difficult questions, challenge accepted narratives and report stories that larger publications may consider too local, too complicated or too controversial.
Montreal Jewish News is not the official voice of any organization, political party, synagogue or community institution. We are independently owned and make our own editorial decisions. We believe community journalism should support the Jewish community without becoming a public-relations department for it. That means recognizing its accomplishments while also examining its problems honestly.
The publication was founded by Montreal broadcaster, journalist and educator Howie Silbiger. His career has included work in radio, print journalism, education, business and Jewish communal life. That experience shapes the way Montreal Jewish News approaches its reporting, with an understanding that Jewish Montreal is not one organization or one point of view, but a collection of neighbourhoods, institutions, traditions and individuals who do not always agree with one another.
Our goal is simple: to report what is happening, provide the necessary context and give Montreal’s Jewish community a place where its stories are taken seriously.
Montreal Jewish News is Jewish news, from Montreal, written for the people who live it.
