‘We’ve lost a member of our community’: Montreal Jews react to deadly attack

Police are seen near a kosher restaurant in Montreal after a shooting nearby which left three people dead, on June 22, 2026. The bloodshed occurred in a largely Jewish neighbourhood but police declined to comment on what the motive might have been and whether the incident amounted to a hate crime or act of terror. Photo by Daphné LEMELIN/AFP via Getty Images

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Montreal’s Jewish community was still struggling to understand Tuesday whether antisemitism was the motive behind a deadly attack in the predominantly Jewish neighbourhood of Côte-des-Neiges that left a police officer and bystander dead.

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“It was obviously a horrible, horrible attack and really unfortunate,” said Yair Szlak, the chief executive officer of the Federation CJA, a Jewish organization in Montreal.

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When he was first informed of the attack, “of course your mind immediately goes towards antisemitism,” Szlak told National Post, in a phone interview while he was just down the road from the site of the shooting.

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Daniel Benlolo, a reverend at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of Montreal, got “a slew of people sending messages that it was antisemitic,” he told the Post. “The news started putting two and two together. It’s a Jewish neighbourhood: it must be antisemitic.”

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However, Szlak warned against news reports and social media chatter that framed the attack as antisemitic, given the early nature of the police investigation, and Benlolo agreed with his cautionary tone.

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Szlak appreciates why many Montreal Jews feel vulnerable, particularly in light of high-profile antisemitic incidents since October 7. “The Jewish community that’s been under attack with various antisemitic incidents — whether it’s shootings at schools, the infamous Jew in a noose paraded down Sherbrooke Street — we know what antisemitism looks like,” Szlak said. “I’m not willing to jump ahead and say this was antisemitism.”

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The suspected manifesto of the alleged shooter references several factors he attributed to “the situation of terrible loneliness, isolation, and social degradation that is now a stark reality for many men of varying ages across our societies.” While rhetoric in the document has been described as displaying the hallmarks of involuntary celibacy (incels), a misogynistic movement, it also contains several anti-capitalist and antisemitic passages.

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“The influence of Zionist Jews upon the western bourgeoisie is in fact so strong that in my other works I sometimes refer to the western ruling class itself as the Judaeo-bourgeois class,” the alleged document reads.

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The manifesto’s list of “valid potential class A targets” exhibits antisemitic undertones, such as references to “slumlords” and “elite bankers” as well as overt references to “influential Zionists” and “all corporations with ties to Zionism are fair game: IBM, Microsoft, Boeing, etc.”

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Szlak said that he is aware that the alleged manifesto contains antisemitic and anti-Zionist themes, but said that “jumping to a conclusion at this particular point would be too early for us.” The 104-page document also lists other targets, including oil CEOs, plastic surgeons, cryptocurrency leaders and pickup artists.