A JEWISH community centre in Montreal was firebombed early yesterday – an act decried by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “vile and hateful” amid flaring tensions in Canada over the Israel-Hamas war.

A Molotov cocktail was thrown through the building’s front door shortly after midnight, coming on the heels of several shootings and another firebombing targeting Jewish schools and institutions in Canada’s second-largest city.

The weapon smashed through the glass door and exploded in a hallway, burning part of a carpet.

“No one was present and minimal damage occurred,” the head of Montreal’s Jewish Community Council, Rabbi Saul Emanuel, said in a statement.

“The rise in anti-Semitism in our city is frightening and the repeated violence and attacks on our community are abhorrent and condemned in the strongest terms,” he added.

Trudeau said on X the “continued acts of anti-Semitic violence are deplorable and unacceptable – and must stop immediately.” 

“We must all stand united against such vile, hateful acts,” he said.

Earlier this month, two Jewish schools were fired on, twice in one case, and a synagogue was struck with a Molotov cocktail. There were no injuries.

Police in Montreal and Toronto – both with large Jewish communities – warned of a recent spike in hate crimes, particularly anti-Semitic acts.

Several countries around the word, notably in Europe, have seen attacks on Jewish targets increase amid the intense Israeli strikes on Gaza in response to the bloody October 7 attack by militants of the Palestinian group Hamas. – AFP, November 28, 2023.