Montreal restaurant run by Jewish woman vandalized with antisemitic message

A Montreal restaurant in the Plateau Mont-Royal was vandalized with antisemitic messaging on Wednesday.

“You (expletive) Jew,” along with a Star of David, was written in what appears to be blue marker on the outside glass of Maestro SVP, a seafood restaurant on Saint-Laurent Boulevard and Prince Arthur Street.

“I went outside and looked at it and horrified of what was written. And the first instinct was a shock,” said owner Ilene Polansky.

“This incident, it’s the first time since I’ve been here that something in that nature, an antisemitic writing has happened.”

Montreal police told CityNews it received a call Wednesday around 4:20 p.m. about a business on Saint-Laurent and Prince Arthur with graffiti, but a spokesperson could not confirm if the hate crimes unit is investigating nor if the SPVM has classified the graffiti as antisemitic.

“It’s not obvious at all that I’m Jewish except for my mezuzah on the front door, but you’d have to come in and know that, have a conversation with me to know where I’m from and by background,” Polansky sad. “Yeah, not obvious at all.”

SPVM investigators searched the area to see if any video of the alleged incident was filmed by nearby security cameras, but police would not confirm if any footage was retrieved.

No suspects have been identified and no arrests have been made, police say.

The graffiti was still there by Thursday afternoon.

“Unfortunately, it’s not shocking,” said Paola Samuel, the regional director of B’nai Brith for Quebec and Atlantic Canada. “It’s been happening so much in this city, in this province and across the country that we are seeing 17 incidents of antisemitism per day in Canada. So, horrifying, but not shocking.”

The incident comes as the federal government recently decided there will no longer be standalone federal envoys to combat antisemitism and Islamophobia in Canada. Instead, the two positions will be merged into a new advisory council on rights, equality and inclusion.

“B’nai Brith is deeply concerned of putting everything under a hate department or whatever they’re calling it because antisemitism isn’t just hate – it is a mutating virus and the Jewish community is targeted differently depending on what’s going on in the world,” Samuel said.

“We are urging the government to make antisemitism its top priority in this new department that they’re putting together. But we do have concerns.”

For Polansky, she has been running her restaurant for the past 34 years and plans to close it March 22 to retire. She says this is the first time she has encountered this type of antisemitism at her restaurant.

“I really want to know who this person is to have a sit-down talk with him and why they wrote that,” she told CityNews.

“Why that writing, why those words, that’s what I hope that I could sit down with that person and have a chat.”