Beryl Wajsman: Michel Mizrahi moved from Israel to Montreal only to lose his life to a Canadian terrorist

Michel Mizrahi Photo by The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

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MONTREAL — I last saw Michel (Moshe) Mizrahi last Saturday, when he came to synagogue to celebrate the birthday of a mutual friend. Who could have imagined that this would be the last time I would see him, some 30 years after we first met?

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Yet so it was. Michel was the innocent civilian victim of a shootout that occurred on Monday in Montreal. How searingly we can now all understand the eternal title of Ernest Hemingway’s novel, “For Whom The Bell Tolls.”

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The title was taken from the opening meditation by the English poet John Donne in his Meditation XVII: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.… Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls.”

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The meaning is profound in this tragedy. Every human death touches every other human being because we are all connected. The bell tolls, in a sense, for each of us. I have received hundreds of calls. One of his oldest friends called Monday night and Tuesday morning crying uncontrollably throughout both conversations.

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So did many others. All cried for him but all also considered our own fates and the serendipitous and fragile nature of our lives. The absurdity of life — as Albert Camus called it — which can hit anyone at every hour, at every corner every day.

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And indeed, as Michel literally turned a corner and met his fate, this thought carries particular poignancy. Yet to honour his memory and make sense of his tragic end we must rouse faith over fear and hope over despair.

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Many bells rang in Michel’s life. The elegant businessman knew much senseless and painful loss. In January 1991, his father died in Israel in a missile attack during the Gulf War. And on Oct. 7, 2023, the child of one of his siblings was slaughtered at the Nova music festival in the barbaric Hamas attack.

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Just last year, during Montreal’s Yom HaZikaron ceremony — held annually to honour Israel’s fallen soldiers and victims of terror — Michel was asked by the Israeli consul general to recite the Kaddish, the Jewish memorial prayer over the dead. It was the last time I saw him until this past Saturday.

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Few people have been touched so personally by the scourge of war and terrorism. Yet those who knew Michel never saw bitterness. They saw resilience. They saw faith. They saw a man who refused to surrender hope despite suffering that would have overwhelmed many others.

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Born in Lebanon, Michel eventually made his home in Israel before settling in Montreal. He remained deeply devoted to Israel throughout his life, maintaining close ties to his children and family there. Almost every year on the anniversary of his father’s death he travelled to Israel.