Kosher Restaurant Nöam Burns as Montreal’s Religious Communities Come Under Attack

By Howie Silbiger

Montreal’s religious communities came under attack early Saturday after a popular kosher restaurant was destroyed by fire and a mosque in the same area was targeted by an arsonist.

Nöam Restaurant on Décarie Boulevard suffered catastrophic damage in a fire that broke out shortly before 3:15 a.m. The flames spread through the building, damaging the restaurant and an adjoining business before firefighters brought the blaze under control several hours later. No injuries were reported.

The SPVM’s arson squad has taken over the investigation.

Police spokesperson Raphaël Bergeron said someone was seen leaving the property shortly after the fire began. Investigators are reviewing surveillance footage, examining the scene and speaking with the restaurant’s owners about whether they received any threats before the fire. No arrest has been announced.

According to building owner Howard Szalavetz, authorities told him that surveillance video showed an individual placing a container of gasoline in front of Nöam, setting the fire and fleeing. Szalavetz said the destruction could cause hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage and may approach $1 million if part of the building must be demolished.

“This isn’t just money. It is the lives of the people who work there,” Szalavetz said.

The restaurant was closed for Shabbos when the fire began. Nöam had become one of Montreal’s most popular kosher restaurants. It was more than somewhere to eat. It was a gathering place, a business built by members of the Jewish community and a visible Jewish presence on one of Montreal’s busiest streets. By Saturday morning, much of it had been reduced to a burned shell. The destruction immediately drew calls for the fire to be investigated as an anti-Jewish hate crime.

Mount Royal MP Anthony Housefather said he was “absolutely disgusted” by the apparent arson and called for everyone responsible to be found and prosecuted.

“This attack against a Jewish-owned business must be investigated as a hate crime,” Housefather said.

Housefather later visited the site with Mount Royal MNA Elisabeth Prass and Montreal city councillor Sonny Moroz. He said both the arson squad and the police hate-crime unit were investigating.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called the fire another attack against Canada’s Jewish community and said statements and condemnations were no longer enough.

“Another day. Another attack against Canada’s Jewish people,” Poilievre wrote. “No more talk. We need real action.”

Federal Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree said he was extremely concerned by what appeared to be an arson attack against a kosher restaurant that served as a gathering place for Montreal’s Jewish community.

Montreal MP Marc Miller said he was disgusted by the attack and called for it to be investigated as a hate crime. Outremont MP Rachel Bendayan also condemned the destruction and expressed support for the restaurant’s owners, employees and the Jewish community.

Conservative Deputy Leader Melissa Lantsman placed the fire alongside other recent attacks against Jewish-owned businesses in Canada and said the incidents could no longer be dismissed as isolated events.

Quebec Senator Leo Housakos said Jewish Montrealers increasingly feel unsafe in a city they helped build.

Côte Saint-Luc councillor Mike Cohen visited the scene and described the destruction as a major hate crime. Montreal councillor Leslie Roberts wrote that arson is a crime and anti-Jewish hatred is a hate crime.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said another Jewish-owned Montreal business had been “reduced to ashes.” CIJA placed the destruction of Nöam alongside the growing number of attacks against Jewish businesses and institutions and called for the person responsible to be identified and prosecuted.

B’nai Brith Canada issued a more detailed statement after Quebec and Atlantic Regional Director Paola Samuel visited the site following Shabbos.

“The community is shaken, and many are concerned that this attack may have been hate-motivated,” Samuel said.

She called for a prompt and transparent police investigation and said authorities must examine whether the fire was an act of hate-motivated violence, domestic terrorism or a national-security incident. B’nai Brith CEO Simon Wolle said the latest attack, combined with other recent incidents, had reinforced the feeling that Jews were becoming unsafe and unwelcome in Canada.

The Israeli Consulate in Montreal also condemned the destruction of the kosher, Jewish-owned restaurant and called for a serious investigation followed by the prosecution of those responsible.

Actor and comedian Michael Rapaport, who was in Montreal, posted a video reacting to the fire and blamed years of anti-Israel incitement for creating an atmosphere in which Jewish businesses could be attacked.

Rapaport pointed to the timing of the fire, which was set on Friday night while the restaurant’s owners were observing Shabbos.

“You can call it anti-Zionism. You can call it whatever you want,” Rapaport said. His message was that Jewish people are the ones paying the price.

As the Jewish community was still absorbing the destruction of Nöam, Housefather disclosed that a mosque on De Courtrai Avenue had also been targeted by an arsonist during the same night.

“One of our local mosques on De Courtrai was also attacked by a cowardly and despicable arsonist,” Housefather wrote.

He said he had spoken with one of the mosque’s leaders, expressed his complete support and called for the perpetrator to be arrested and prosecuted. Few details about the mosque attack were available Saturday. The extent of the damage was not immediately clear, and police had not said whether the mosque attack and the destruction of Nöam were connected.

They do not have to be connected for the message to be disturbing.

During the same night, in the same part of Montreal, a visibly Jewish business and a Muslim place of worship were targeted by fire. One was a restaurant built around the religious requirements of the Jewish community. The other was a place where Muslims gathered to pray.

The fires also force Quebec to confront a question it has spent years avoiding.

What happens when a government repeatedly presents visible religion as something that must be controlled, restricted and pushed out of public life?

Quebec’s secularism law already prevents certain public employees from wearing religious symbols while doing their jobs. In April, the National Assembly adopted another law expanding the province’s secularism regime and restricting collective religious practice on public roads and in public parks unless a municipality grants specific authorization.

Teachers have been told they cannot wear a kippah, hijab or turban. Prayer rooms are disappearing. Public prayer is treated as a political provocation. Religious schools, religious clothing and religious accommodations are repeatedly presented as problems that Quebec must solve.

The government calls it secularism. The people being told to hide their faith experience something very different.

The law did not light the fire at Nöam. It did not attack the mosque on De Courtrai. But governments help shape the way people speak about one another, and Quebec has spent years making open suspicion of religion respectable.

When politicians constantly speak about faith as something threatening, foreign or unwelcome in public life, they should not be surprised when religious people begin to feel threatened, foreign and unwelcome themselves.

That is the question Quebec must now answer.

Has the province’s campaign against visible religion helped create an atmosphere in which hostility toward religion is no longer considered shameful?

For Montreal’s Jewish community, the Nöam fire comes after years of attacks against Jewish schools, synagogues, businesses and community institutions. Windows have been smashed. Buildings have been shot at. Synagogues have been targeted by fire. Jewish-owned businesses have been vandalized and attacked.

Now a successful kosher restaurant has been destroyed. Its owners have lost what they built. Its employees have lost their workplace. Its customers have lost a place that belonged to their community.

A mosque was attacked during the same night.

Police must find the people responsible. Quebec must also decide whether it is prepared to defend religious freedom or whether it will continue treating religion itself as the problem.